Lithuania’s Transport Minister Marius Skuodis hopes that a passenger train service between Vilnius and Riga will be up and running as early as in 2024.
“In more than 30 years of independence, we should have already had a train service with Latvia, which has the same tracks [gauge], and we want Lietuvos Geležinkeliai [LTG] to start as soon as possible, from 2024.” Skuodis said in a comment shared after a meeting with the head of the state-owned railway company.
“We have succeeded with Poland, where the tracks are different, and we hope to succeed with our closest Baltic neighbours as well,” he added, referring to a Vilnius-Warsaw service that was launched this year.
Minister Skuodis and Linas Baužys, CEO of the railway company’s passenger arm LTG Link, met on Wednesday to discuss renewing train services from Lithuania to Riga and Daugavpils in Latvia.
Later approached by BNS, Skuodis could not give a timeframe for the launch of the Vilnius–Riga service. He said that this would also require action by Latvia, but did not elaborate.
“I see great effort, but I also see political challenges to harmonise [railway connections] between different countries and different railways. I want to hope that by the beginning of the year all the actions will be done by joint efforts,” he told BNS before the government meeting on Wednesday.
“This is a fairly regulated system and, unfortunately, we do not yet have a single market in this area in Europe,” he added.
Skuodis said Lithuania would like to see a passenger service from Vilnius to Riga running through Šiauliai: “There would simply be a higher speed and traffic”.
Early this year, the ministers of the three Baltic countries agreed to look for possibilities to launch passenger train services between Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn sooner than 2030, the expected completion date of the Rail Baltica railway line, the Transport Ministry said in a press release earlier on Wednesday.
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