Is Finland losing the train to Europe?

c: Beltramba

Let’s start with two simple questions:

1. Can diesel trucks and buses travel everywhere in the EU? Answer: YES, they can!

2. Can passenger/freight trains go everywhere in the EU? Answer: NO, they cannot!

Let’s look at a long-lasting problem for European Railways, one which has been awaiting a solution since Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Finland and the Baltic Republics joined the EU: the track gauges. This issue came abruptly to the stage with the war in Ukraine: people fleeing from Russia’s bombs, help being sent there, and Ukraine’s exports must change trains at the border to overrun the break of gauges. Politicians travelling to Kyiv had to catch the train and change at the border too.

The EU is now a ‘four gauges land’, worse than Australia which has three. It has 1435mm (‘standard’) in most Member States, 1520mm (‘Russian gauge’) in Estonia, Lietuva, Latvia and Finland (1524), 1600mm in Ireland, 1668mm (‘Iberian gauge’) in Spain and Portugal. The candidates Ukraine and Moldova have 1520mm.

In fact, only Spain (but not Portugal!) has built some, but not all, high-speed lines with standard gauge (SG), and some lines dual gauge with a tri-rails track, which doubles the track’s cost and limits the speed.

Ireland has no interest in the SG, because the narrow loading gauge complicates the interchange of vehicles with other Member States.

Once upon a time: cars interchange with Finland (1524mm gauge)

Freight rail traffic with Finland once involved carrying the wagons by ferry with SG tracks from Sweden or Germany to Turku, then changing the axles in a shed with time consuming procedures and hard handwork. This practice came to an end around 2012 with the cancellation of PSO for freight traffic after EU Regulation 1370/2007 came into force.

…and with the Baltic Republics (1520mm gauge)

Since the Soviet Union (and so the Baltics) used the automatic coupler (AC) type SA3, the axles were changed at the border too, but two ‘transition cars’ with the different couplers were also added to the broad gauge cars entering the SG network, and vice versa in the opposite direction. Like Finland, the practice ended around 2010 in favour of containers. Until the war, only passenger carriages changed the bogies on the trains between the East and West. The Baltics (with high EU co-financing) are now building the standard gauge 870km high-speed line, Rail Baltica, to connect the three republics to the main network of the EU. This is very expensive (around €6 billion, E&Y estimated in 2017) and slow to achieve, instead of converting the gauge, which costs roughly 200,000 €/km.

An uncertain future for 10 corridors in broad gauge land?

The new TEN-T regulation proposed by the EU Commission in December 2021 (COM/2021/812 final) will allow only standard gauge rail lines if they are objects of EU-contribution. But not all Member States seem to be enthusiastic of that proposal. To note, Finland, planning two high-speed lines from Helsinki to Turku and to Oulu. They could take this opportunity to join the ‘1435mm club’ by building the line between Espoo and Salo along the highway with two SG tracks, adding a SG track from Salo to Turku (56km) with a long high-speed passing loop midway and converting one of four tracks from Espoo to Helsinki (18km). This arrangement should allow 30ft headways per direction. And to Oulu: adding a SG track from Oulu to Lapua with high-speed crossovers and long passing loops, like Sweden’s Botniabanan, and then so on to Tampere, eventually bypassing Seinäjoki and Tampere if very fast trains to the North are needed.

However, the Finnish government does not seem to share this vision. The document produced reveals some doubts (currently only available in Finnish: ‘Eurooppalaisen raideleveyden käyttöönoton mahdollisuudet ja vaikutukset Suomessa’. With usual translator tools only the text, not tables and graphics, are converted. Some key findings include:

1. On page 17, Switzerland seems to have more 1000mm gauge lines than SG 1435mm
2. On page 18, the document wrongly states that all high-speed lines in Spain have been built with the standard gauge (in fact: A Coruňa-Santiago-Vigo and Plasencia-Merida-Badajoz are Iberian gauge, and the recently opened Pajares cut-off is dual gauge, but the line from Leon is only broad gauge…)
3. There is no mention about the coupler, since Finland makes extended use of the SA3 device, but most EU Member States use the odd screw coupler
4. There is no mention of the possibility to sell the unused broad axles and if the existing bogies are to be changed/modified or allow SG axles after a risk assessment
5. There is no clear timing indication for the conversion of the whole network. But on page 54 (chapter 9), it should be done in only three years (highly ambitious and probably not technically possible to achieve) at a cost of roughly €5.5 billion
6. Having been drafted after Russia started the war against Ukraine, the military concerns should have more space than only a brief mention.

Of course, this is a political, not a technical decision, but it seems that for import/export the Finnish government prefers the trucks and loading/unloading of conventional ships more than trains on ferries. And building dual gauge lines means a four-rail track, given the little difference. Such a track costs roughly three times a SG track.

On the other hand, a few years ago (2018) the Finnish government prepared a study for a broad gauge line to reach the Atlantic Ocean (“artic-ocean-railway”) with two options: Rovaniemi to Kirkenes or Kolari to Tromsø, both in the middle of nowhere. With costs exceeding €3 billion for the first and €7 billion for the second option, this was more than astonishing. So far, it seems that Finland has at least two little problems with the railways: 89mm and the EU Commission.

A solution? Convert the gauges all over the network!

If Finland wants to convert all the lines, let’s take a look at the numbers, which aren’t clear in the official document. Track renewal machines can do 350m/h, 1km every three hours, replacing turnouts and sleepers (rails are identical). We have roughly 10,000km of track length to convert. Naturally, this cannot be achieved in one night, but with a 20 year carefully planned action, the target is reasonable.

Assuming the cost at 200,000 €/km plus two turnouts/km (each €100,000) we have a rounded cost of 400.000 €/km. Summa summarum: roughly €4 billion. Compare this with the €6 billion for Rail Baltica’s only 870km (E&Y estimated in 2017, but this should be updated as soon as possible).

In 20 steps means around 200 million/year. For the vehicles, it should be enough to change the axles/bogies, cheaply if carefully planned and sell the old axles/bogies to other broad gauge countries or wait for the natural substitution of the worn out. A 50% EU contribution could be a good incentive.

Meanwhile, the polluting (diesel) trucks and buses can go everywhere without changing the driver: the trains not only change the driver at the borders, but the locomotive too, if it’s not a multi-system and variable gauge type, as electrification systems often differ from state to state, not counting the track gauge.

If the EU wants to reach the Single European Railway Area (at today’s pace this is light years away), a strong coherent decision is needed, and the related acts (and money) released.

Otherwise, it will remain a pious wish, one that has nothing to do with the real world.

c: Beltramba

Ivan Beltramba is a Civil and Rail Transport Engineer, working for a Regional Government in the north of Italy, in charge of National Rail Infrastructure. He holds a degree from the University of Bologna and a master from Milan’s Politecnico. A South Tyrol native, he speaks Italian, German and English. He also worked for the municipal administration of Bologna and since 2017 teaches about Tramtrain technology at the Universities of Bologna, Firenze, and Lugano as a visiting professor. During his studies he worked as a consultant for Siemens and travelled through Europe thanks to the Inter-rail ticket and the night trains.