Track gauge in Estonia

Estonia mainly uses a track gauge of 1,520 mm (4 ft 11 2732 in) or 1,524 mm (5 ft), inherited from the Russian Empire times.

Russian Gauge

See also: Russian gauge
Soviet Union

Estonia converted relatively late from the Soviet Unions redefinition of the gauge from 1,524 mm (5 ft) to 1,520 mm (4 ft 11 2732 in).

Post-independence

Since post-independence all renovated tracks owned by Eesti Raudtee have gauge 1,524 mm. Other tracks have gauge 1,520 mm.

Standard gauge proposals

There has been a proposal from the EU to build a standard gauge railway from Tallinn to Warsaw, the Rail Baltica. For cost reasons the current plans only see an upgrade of the existing Russian gauge railway to Lithuania over Riga, a new railway through Lithuania, and upgrade through Poland. It will have standard gauge only south of Kaunas, Lithuania, not in Estonia.

Narrow gauge

Historically Estonia had 750 mm (2 ft 5 12 in) narrow gauge installations.

Tallinn has tram with 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge.

References

    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.