AS Eesti Liinirongid, Estonia’s state-owned passenger train operator that runs its business under the Elron brand, has started preparations for the certification of diesel trains to provide passenger train services in Latvia.
In 2024, Elron is about to launch a passenger train service between Tartu, Estonia’s second largest city, and the Latvian capital Riga via the border town of Valga in collaboration with the Estonian Ministry of Climate, the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture, the City of Tartu and Latvian partners.
“The first stage of the launch of the passenger train service on the Tartu-Valga-Riga route is the certification of the Stadler Flirt diesel trains used by Elron in Estonia for operation on Latvian railways. This is a prerequisite for the use of Elron’s rolling stock in Latvia,” Mart Ehrenpreis, member of the management board of Elron, said. “We have started preparations for the certification of trains, and in the final week of the year we sent the first documents to Latvia.”
The Elron board member said the launch of the Tartu-Riga service is at a preparatory stage, in the phase of contacts with the authorities in Latvia to reach an agreement on the conditions and possibilities of operating the regular service.
“For Elron, cooperation with the Latvian railway sector and businesses is very important. The Tartu-Riga service can only start operating as a collaboration between the two countries and the train companies,” Ehrenpreis said. He added that before an international train service can be launched, issues ranging from staff and technical support to the ticketing system need to be solved.
In 2022, trains of Elron, the only rail passenger service operator in Estonia, registered 7.1 million boardings.
Source: BNS
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