Finland must replace hundreds of Russian railcars: they must meet EU standards
Photo: Kare Lehtonen / Yle

Finland is to replace hundreds of Russian railroad cars still in use in the country. About reports is the Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

The privilege for the use of railcars manufactured in Russia and the Baltic states is set to expire. In the coming years, all railcars will have to meet EU standards.

The issue is particularly acute for the timber industry, which will have to decommission up to a thousand railcars, Yle notes.

Most of the Russian railcars ended up on the country's railways in 2022, when the supply of wood and chemicals from Russia stopped due to sanctions. At that time, Finland seized almost a thousand freight cars of Russian companies.

Currently, Finnish companies continue to use cars manufactured to Russian GOST on domestic routes, despite the fact that they do not meet EU requirements.

According to the original plan, Russian railcars were to be decommissioned by the end of 2026. However, the parliament is considering an amendment that could extend the deadline by another two years.

Jari Lappalainen, CEO of VIS Suomen Kiskokalustetehdas Oy, believes that Finland needs at least 800 new railcars. The company is a Finnish subsidiary of the German railway equipment manufacturer VIS Verkehrs Industrie Systeme. The German company plans to set up production of railcars in Finland and lease them to local companies.

"We could produce up to a hundred new railcars a year for the woodworking, metallurgical and chemical industries," Lappalainen said.

The German company also intends to challenge the dominance of VR Group, the country's largest freight car supplier.

However, there is a problem: the track gauge used in Finland is 1524 millimeters, while the European gauge is 1435 millimeters.

In Finland, new freight cars are already being manufactured, for example, by VR Fleetcare. This year, it will start producing railcars suitable for the transportation of NATO heavy military equipment for the armed forces of Norway and Sweden.

Finnish freight wagons can be shipped directly to Central Europe via Estonia after the new line is completed Rail Baltica between Tallinn (Estonia) and Warsaw (Poland).

Rail Baltica will be built with a common European gauge, although elsewhere in Estonia the same gauge is used as in Eastern Europe.

  • in 2023, Finland began modernizing the railroad connecting the country with Sweden to speed up the deployment of NATO troops in the event of a conflict with Russia. Before the war in Ukraine, the modernization of this route was estimated at $41 million and was considered economically unfeasible.
  • In 2024, Finnish Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne said that changing the 1520 mm wide gauge used in Russia, which is called "tsarist" in Finland, to 1435 mm "more relevant than ever".