Baltic Nations Agree on Rail Baltica Framework

The Rail Baltica project, designed to tie infrastructure in the Baltic nations with that of Poland and central Europe, received the final signature necessary in the most recent part of the approval process.  Lithuanian officials had been lagging in approving the agreement on how the project, a commercial venture ran by the three Baltic governments, would be organized and funded.

The signing comes shortly after the EU warned that it may not continue funding the project due to conflicts between the various governments involved. The details had been finalized and agreed upon by most on September 30; it has been alleged that Lithuanian reluctance could be due to the elections occurring in that country on October 9.

The rail corridor is designed to link Warsaw, Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn together by 1435 mm (European gauge) rails. While the specific rail gauge may seem trivial, most of the rail network in the Baltic nations is 1520 mm gauge. This specific width is better known as Russian gauge, due to its use in former Soviet block countries. These differences mean that any train attempting to transfer from one gauge to another must be switched out.

Local constructions have already begun, but current progress has been mostly limited to modernizing existing railways. Rail Baltica I was completed in October 2015 and runs from the Polish border to Kaunas, Lithuania. Work on Rail Baltica II, which will be focused on the line from Kaunas to the Latvian border, began on September 19, 2016.

Rail Baltica I and II deal mostly with renovating existing lines. Construction on Rail Baltica proper, an entirely new line from Kaunas to Riga and Tallinn, is not expected to begin until 2020. Current plans consist of expanding the line to Warsaw (as opposed to using existing lines) in 2030. There are also proposals to expand the line to Helsinki either by a new barge system or an underground tunnel, but these ideas have not yet received a date of implementation.