Today marks the launch of a daily direct train between the cities of Tartu and Riga. 250 kilometres apart by rail, the two cities saw several direct international trains linking them by the end of the Soviet occupation, however once both countries restored their independence, rail service began to quickly decline, especially on international links. This post will look into the level of service that existed before, how it declined, how it was slowly restored, and what the future holds.

1986

We begin in the year 1986, just at the time when radical reforms began to be enacted across the Soviet Union. By this time, the Baltics had standardised on broad gauge for passenger rail, large cities had links to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv and Warsaw, and rolling stock was composed of standard Ammendorf passenger cars with seats or sleeping compartments, with electric multiple units operating commuter trains and D1 and DR1 diesel multiple units used on regional trains.

The first interesting thing we find in the timetable is train 188/187 from Tallinn to Minsk, leaving Tallinn at 06:20, Tartu at 09:43, and arriving in Riga at 14:04. The train continues to Vilnius, arriving 20:05. The return working departs Vilnius at 10:00, Riga at 16:00, Tartu at 20:38 and arrives in Tallinn at 23:50. In addition to the 12 coaches to Minsk, the train carried through coaches to Warsaw and Brest as well as a seasonal through coach to Simferopol.

Second we look at train 652/651 from Tallinn to Riga via Valga. This follows the same route as the train above, but with some additional stops. This is an overnight service, leaving Tallinn at 22:07, Tartu at 02:20, Valga at 04:27 before arriving in Riga at 08:08. The northbound departure from Riga is at 23:23, from Valga at 3:12, Tartu at 05:08 and arrival in Tallinn at 08:56. The train consists of 13 coaches, plus two through coaches to Adler via Kharkiv and one to Simferopol.

Finally, there’s train 643 from Tallinn to Riga. This train does not serve Tartu, instead taking the short lived broad gauge route via Pärnu and Mõisaküla in the west. With a 4 hour and 59 minute journey time, the train was fast, even by today’s standards. Unfortunately this connection was severed in the 1990s, as the line was built on the cheap with used materials, with the intention of being upgraded later. The change in control of the state led to the financial situation not being able to fund such upgrades, and while low ridership was cited as the official reason for the closure in 1992, unofficial sources state that this was simply because tickets were checked rarely and often passengers took the train without a ticket. (https://est-train.ertas.eu/louna/parnu-moisakyla.php?lng=est). Domestic trains ran to Mõisaküla until 1996 and by 2008, the railway south of Pärnu had been removed. The final nail in the coffin for this railway alignment was the cancellation of passenger trains between Lelle and Pärnu on the 8th of December 2018, once again due to poor track conditions and unwillingness to invest, this time with Rail Baltic being expected to provide high speed service once it opens in lieu of the old alignment.

1990s

In 1993, a new passenger route was launched, linking Tallinn to Šeštokai in southern Lithuania, from where passengers could transfer to a Polish train. The train, named the “Baltic Express”, left Tallinn at 17:20, Tartu at 20:04, Valga at 21:55 before arriving in Riga in the dead of night at 00:05. The return working left Riga at 05:20, Valga at 08:01, Tartu at 09:35 and arrived in Tallinn at 12:15. This provided a connection to Poland from Lithuania without passing through Belarus or Kaliningrad. By 1997, the former trains to Minsk and Riga were cancelled and replaced with domestic trains, the only remaining international trains in Estonia other than the Baltic Express were to Moscow, one via Narva and one via Tartu. While these trains survived the privatisation and handoff to GoRail, the Baltic Express did not, and Šeštokai was only served by local Lithuanian trains from October 1997. Declining rail infrastructure, competition from the deregulated coach market as well as great availability of personal cars under capitalism led to the public being disinterested in passenger rail.

2000s

By the turn of the millenium, the privatisation of rail was in full swing in Estonia. After a brief scare with the passenger operator, Edelaraudtee, who cut most service in the year 2000, passenger service was restored to 1990s levels. The fleet was standardised to DR1 diesel multiple units, passenger coaches being dedicated solely for trains to Moscow and old Hungarian D1 “cabbage worm” units were retired completely. First class was introduced with high-back 2+2 airline style seating on express trains from Tallinn to Pärnu and Tartu, including some that continue to Valga.

On the Latvian side, things are not looking great. While they maintained consistent service domestically, international service between Estonia and Latvia had completely disappeared. On June 10 2001, local train service between Valga and Riga was cut, trains terminated just south of the border in Lugaži. This was the only international passenger link remaining following the gradual cut of long distance services. However, on the 25th of April 2008, the first step towards resumption was taken. 3 trains per day were extended north of the border to the station of Valga. While the first timetable has not been archived, Wayback Machine has stored a copy from May of the same year. https://web.archive.org/web/20081230071800if_/http://pv.lv:80/text/UserFiles/File/Vilcienu%20kustibas%20saraksts%20no%2025.05.2008new.xls

However, in April of the same year, EVR, the renationalised railway infrastructure manager began repairs on the Tartu-Valga railway line, during which all traffic was stopped south of Elva. From August of the same year, trains were cancelled between Tartu and Elva as well. Furthermore, the transfer between the Estonian and Latvian trains in Valga was not timed - passengers had to wait 2 hours to continue their journey.

2010s

Trains between Tartu and Valga resumed on January 1 2010, and the Estonian passenger operator Edelaraudtee mentions the option of a transfer in their timetable. This would be by train 210 leaving Tallinn at 06:40 and calling at all stations, departing Tartu at 10:00, and arriving in Valga at 11:33. Following a cross platform transfer in Valga, the journey continues on train 851/661 to Riga, leaving at 11:42 and stopping at all stations before arriving in Riga at 15:03. The use of local trains operated by DR1 multiple units resulted in a clear downgrade in comfort from the passenger coaches that once ran long distance services in the Baltics, and the long journey time from all the local stops meant few passengers opted to use it. While Edelaraudtee maintained units with first class accommodation in their fleet, these were used for express trains between Tartu and Tallinn which did not continue to Valga. We find the travelogue of Mikko Itälahti from 2011, who took the journey from Berlin to Tallinn using the trains described above. https://mikkoitalahti.blogspot.com/

The transfer for the northbound journey wasn’t integrated until the 29th of May 2011, when the departure of train 664/854 was shifted half an hour earlier from Riga, giving it an arrival time in Valga of 16:35, in time to connect with train 213 towards Tallinn, arriving at 18:22 in Tartu and Tallinn at 21:24. By this time though Edelaraudtee’s days as a passenger operator were numbered, as the state of Estonia had ordered 20 Stadler FLIRT diesel multiple units to replace their fleet, intending to operate them by a state-owned operator under a directly awarded PSO contract. The units entered service with a very hard launch on the 1st of January 2014, with Edelaraudtee operating their last trains on the 31st of December 2013, after which the new diesel trains were positioned into place across Estonia over night for the launch of Elron, the new passenger operator in Estonia. While the new operator immediately brought changes to the timetable, most notably with improvements to frequency between Tallinn and Tartu and drastic cuts to journey times, the timetable between Tartu and Valga remained as is until June 1, when additional trains were added. One of these would be train 332, which connected to a southbound train to Riga: 853 leaving at 17:24, arriving in Riga at 20:46.

Despite several changes to the timetable on the Estonian side due to frequency increases and track repairs, the transfers remained available until works on the Latvian side led to trains being replaced with buses between Valmiera and Valga from August 2015 to June 2016. From that date onwards, the southbound transfer was only possible on weekends, from train 332 to 869. On weekdays, train 867 ran instead of train 869, leaving 2 hours earlier and the transfer to that involved train 330 on the Estonian side, before a 3 hour wait in Valga. Northbound the transfer was possible daily from train 868 to 335.

2020s

The decade did not start off good, first with the COVID-19 pandemic and then the fourth major revision to the Tallinn-Tartu train timetable on the 13th of December 2020. While this did add an additional train pair between the two cities, it broke the one remaining transfer option in Valga, as train 335/17 was timed to leave 2 hours earlier from Valga to serve a new train between Tartu and Tallinn. However, change was on the horizon, as on the 27th of December 2023 the Lithuanian passenger operator LTG Link launched a train between Vilnius and Riga. The train operated daily with a Pesa 730ML diesel multiple unit with a journey time of 4.5 hours, much quicker than the locomotive hauled trains that used to operate this segment as part of long distance services. A year later, on the 9th of December 2024, Elron and Vivi, the rebranded Latvian passenger operator, announced changes to better serve the train towards Vilnius. Vivi would operate a new train between Valga and Riga and back, which would connect to a new Elron train towards Tallinn. With the fifth major revision of the Tallinn-Tartu timetable, train 16/338 began operation, leaving Tallinn at 10:25 and Tartu at 12:45, then running express to Valga, stopping only at Elva on the way. While the journey from Valga to Riga used to take more than 3 hours, it has been cut down to around 2.5 due to track upgrades and station closures. The newly launched Latvian service, trains 873 and 874, complete the leg in 2 hours and 35 minutes. From the 10th of February 2025, the service was improved further, as the Riga-Valga train would be served by the same train that operates Vilnius-Riga. This effectively created a Vilnius-Valga through train, and through ticketing was available from the same date. However, to cross the Estonian border by rail it was still necessary to transfer in Valga.

All along, Elron in cooperation with the city of Tartu and the Ministry of Climate had been at work getting their own international service running. While railway systems in the Baltics are technologically nearly identical, this was not taken into account during the regulatory processes when the trains first entered service. As such, to get the trains homologoated for operations in Latvia, it was necessary to undergo the full regulatory approval process again. With an initial launch planned for late 2024, it took a full year to get the trains certified for passenger operations. Finally a launch date was decided: 12th of January 2026 will see the first direct train between Tartu and Riga.

While the train was initially planned to run express between Tartu and Valga, this would in fact not be the case, as it was decided to maintain the current level of service at local stops. The train is merely an extension of train 16/116, which leaves Tallinn at 14:50, Tartu at 17:05, Valga at 18:35 and arrives in Riga at 20:40. Already the train has received criticism about the timetable, as passengers have asked for a schedule that works with daytrips. Elron has assured that additional frequency will be available once electrification works are complete between Tallinn and Tartu, which frees up diesel trains for other services.

I personally welcome the restoration of a direct train after more than 25 years. While the timing could definitely have been better as I think that Estonian tourists aren’t as attracted to Riga to stay the night there, I think the train will find plenty of passengers as the current options with transfers already do. Furthermore, once ticket sales open for domestic Latvian journeys in a few weeks, the train will also receive passengers between Valmiera and Riga, which is a busy train route that Vivi does not have enough rolling stock to serve. I will likely be taking this train north from Riga a few times later this year and I anticipate an additional train to launch late next year, once electric trains have entered service between Tallinn and Tartu.