A breakdown in relations with eastern neighbour Russia, membership in NATO: Finland’s eyes are turned to the west. That also applies to transport and logistics. In order to streamline operations, Finland is now considering building standard gauge rail in the far north.
Finland uses 1,524-millimetre gauge rails. Most of Europe, including neighbouring Sweden, has railway tracks of 1,435 millimetres in width. That complicates cross-border operations, which are growing increasingly important economically and militarily in Finland.
And so, Helsinki is trying to find out what standard gauge infrastructure could bring to the table, according to Swedish media. “The Finnish Rail Administration is currently analysing what changes are required to enable traffic with European track gauge north of Oulu”, Head of Logistics Pekka Rajala of the institution said.
Adding standard gauge
Finland wants to add to its own gauge by building European gauge infrastructure next to it. That is not always easy. How, for example, do you cross bridges where there is no space for additional tracks? “We are investigating whether it is possible to attach four rails to the same sleeper, so that both the Finnish and European track gauges can be accommodated. Such a system is already used on the bridge between Tornio and Haparanda,” explained Rajala. Tornio and Haparanda are towns on both sides of the border with Sweden – separated by a river.
A future expansion of standard gauge rail infrastructure would be a follow-up step from an earlier upgrade in the area. Last winter, the Finnish Infrastructure Agency, the Finnish Security and Defence Agency and the Swedish Transport Administration cooperated to renovate and electrify rail infrastructure between the border towns.
Supply security
It was the first time that a foreign agency was involved in a Finnish rail project. Rail in northern Finland is clearly important now that the country is a NATO member. After all, the primary motivation for the upgrade was supply security.
“Most of the goods from Finland to other countries travel by sea. If ports could not be used, land connections would have to make up for the shortfall. If there were no land connections, we would have all our eggs in one basket, which is not an ideal situation in terms of preparedness”, Rajala said at the time.