High-speed rail Riga-Jēkabplis

In December 2010 Latvian Transport Minister Uldis Augulis came with a sensational proposal about High-speed rail (HSR) connecting Riga and Moscow. Instead of listing all reasons why Riga-Moscow HSR in unreasonable, I developed a new proposal – Latgale HSR stretching from Riga to Jēkabpils. French LGV Est has demonstrated that HSR can work not only with multi-million cities at booth ends but also as a trunk line with several branches to smaller cities all around the region - similar to the situation in Latgale. The primary use of Latgale HSR would be providing passenger transport from Riga to Jēkabpils and further east on three branches – to Daugavpils Rēzekne and Madona. And the secondary use – an additional freight capacity to Riga port. Though ‘classic’ HSR are passenger-only, several HSR in Germany and at least one in France have/will have mix of freight and passenger trains.

  

Where is the problem?

The existing railway between Riga and Jēkabpils was finished in 1861, since then dozen of towns and villages have emerged near the stops. It is the busiest railway in Latvia carrying big number of freight, suburban and bit smaller number of regional and intercity trains. If traffic will continue to grow, it will become very difficult to sustain so big variety of services on one railway so a need for alternative tracks may emerge. Furthermore – in favor to road transport, the construction of highway replacing the old and inconvenient road trough the towns and villages has already started. If no significant improvement is done to increase the intercity services on the railway, road traffic may steel significant part of passengers.

How this HSR to improve situation?

If a new rail line is considered, it must be build according to modern standards – e.g. the high speed no less then 300km/h. This would allow removing the slot-hungry intercity express service from the old railway. As passenger transport alone could not justify construction of new railway, it must be used also for freight traffic – especially the one heading to docks on the left bank of Daugava in Riga (supposed to be built soon) thus avoiding crossing of the busy Railway Bridge in Riga. The HSR should be routed south of river Daugava because the area is sparsely populated, flat and have vast state forest properties. The whole length of the new railway is approximately 130km; on average speed of 230km/h travel time would drop to 40minutes from Riga Central to Jēkabpils South so cutting the travel time to Daugavpils, Jēkabpils and Rēzekne by more then 1 hour.

A capacity increase by doubling the last single track sections is underway on the old railway so the slot problem will be solved at least for 20 years. But if politicians truly want to make passenger trains the mayor transportation mode in the state, the frequencies and operational speeds for intercity trains should be increased and that also leads to considerably smaller overall capacity of the railway. Latgale HSR is not a project desperately needed right now, but it should be carefully considered by planners. Riga to Daugavpils and Riga to Rēzekne are two of most developed intercity train routes in Latvia and market for passenger transport is bigger than for Rail Baltica or Riga-Moscow HSR project, meanwhile the 130km stretch require far less investments then the other two proposals.

Rail Baltica - 1435mm or 1520mm Gauge?

The idea of connecting the Baltic rail system to the rest of Europe is circulating already for a decade. So far the main problem was considered gauge differences between Poland (1435mm) and the Baltic states (1520mm) and - at least politicians – see the idea of building a 1435mm gauge from the border of Poland further to the north reasonable. In European Parliament election 2009 just one political party did put a single phrase about Rail Baltica project in their program: ‘We are supporting this project because it will allow reaching Berlin within 10 hours from Riga by train’. I voted for them although I knew that an aircraft reaches Berlin in 1hour and 35minutes and their statement just proved that Rail Baltic - as presented so far - is not a runner.

Rail Range – 3.5 Hours
Projects in Europe show that most passengers prefer train rather than plane if travel time on train is no longer than 3 – 3.5h. The current record of system-wide average speed 279.4 km/h is set by French TGV. If we suppose that a new system with average speed of 280 km/h is built the maximum travel range of 980km is set. The further city reachable from Tallinn would be Warsaw (air service dropped in 2008); from Riga – Poznan (no direct service); from Kaunas and Vilnius – Berlin (no direct service, just connections at RIX, CPH, WAW). 
Building the Earth's best standard gauge high-speed rail line trough Poland and the Baltic states would result in attracting passengers from Warsaw to Vilnius, Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn  - whith all currently have a poor air service and few daily (2 to 3) coach service. Berlin - one of the busiest air routes out of RIX – would see no impact. More real average speed v=180 km/h would give feasible connections just from Warsaw to Kaunas and Riga. I strongly doubt Baltic States need such multi-billion project to ease connection in very limited city pairs in North – South axis.

Rail Baltica as Baltic Domestic System
Rather than spending billions for building totally new and separate 1435mm tracks I advise building 1520mm high-speed lines for local use. The biggest problem in the Baltic railways is lack of direct lines between capitals. Riga-Tallinn rail route take a long detour trough Tartu (30% longer than the direct highway); Riga-Vilnius take detour trough Šaulai and Kaunas with make the route 20% longer then the direct highways. I propose new Rail Baltica concept in 4 stages.

Stage 1: Jonava to Panavėžys. This line ads the missing connection from Panavėžys to Vilnius, Kaunas and further south – Marijampolė and Alytus. As Panavėžys is the 4th city in Lithuania considerable flows can be attracted to the two biggest cities in Lithuania.  
Stage 2: Panavėžys to Riga. This section includes optional stops at Pasvalys, Bauska and Iecava. As Riga is the biggest city in the region business and tourism traffic will be attracted and induced. If RIX south and/or north rail link is built - this line can beat BT’s feeder routes from VNO and KUN. Nonstop services from Lithuania are possible to Jūrmala, Ventspils, and Tartu. Stage 1 and 2 is to be the most important rail corridor in the Baltic region because it connects the most populous cities.
Stage 3: Tallinn to Pärnu. Existing rail service is extremely poor – serious upgrades and new sections are required. Pärnu can be connected to North-East region.
Stage 4: Riga to Pärnu. New line needed at least between Saulkrasti and Pärnu. This line would attract all Riga- Tallinn passenger traffic and could provide direct service from Tallinn to various cities in Latvia and Lithuania.

Flexible Solutions
Broad gauge Rail Baltica would not require extremely expensive new tracks in mayor cities but uses the existing infrastructure. High speed passenger lines differ from classic lines with bigger radii (~7km) of curves, advanced catenary and signaling systems. If a new line is built it must correspond to highest geometrical and track standards – the rest can be installed later and speed increased gradually. Train sets must go on two voltage standards (3kV DC in Riga and Tallinn; 25kV AC in Vilnius – Kaunas route and new high-speed lines) – alternatively - 3kV DC can be substituted with diesel generators. Furthermore - more expensive dual gauge train sets could still cross the Polish border and reach Warsaw.

Freight trains require smaller slope gradients but this seems not to be a problem in the flat terrain of the Baltic States. Freight must be reloaded regardless on location of reloading terminal – weather in Tallinn, Riga and Kaunas as in 1435mm proposal – or near the Polish border in case of 1520mm gauge tracks.

I hope the policy-makers will leave their ambition of building standard gauge railway across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as it would be very unflexible and expensive. Intra-Baltic network can give bigger benefits with lower cost.