GoRail is a rail freight operator in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, and also offers related training services. Until commencing offering freight services in 2019 it was a passenger service operator, and until 2020 it operated the only direct international passenger rail services from Estonia (however it is possible to travel to

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

by changing from Elron services to Valga onto

Pasažieru vilciens Pasažieru vilciens ("Passenger train", abbreviated: PV) is the only passenger-carrying railway company in Latvia, operating both electric locomotive, electric and diesel trains on various lines throughout the country. It was formed in November 20 ...

services).

History

The company previously operated under the name EVR Ekspress as a division of the state railway,

Eesti Raudtee Eesti Raudtee or EVR is the national railway infrastructure company of Estonia. It owns a network of of broad gauge () railway throughout the country, including the used by the Elron commuter trains around Tallinn. Its sole shareholder is the ...

. It was partially privatised on 1 April 1999, with a 51% majority share going to the Fraser Group and 49% retained by Eesti Raudtee. The company was renamed GoRail in 2006 when it was sold to the Go Group, which operates various other travel services in Estonia, including Tallinn's main Baltic Station.

Tallinn - St Petersburg and Moscow rail services

GoRail previously ran a number of variants of services from the Baltic station in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

and / or

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, in partnership with

Russian Railways Russian Railways (russian: link=no, ОАО «Российские железные дороги» (ОАО «РЖД»), OAO Rossiyskie zheleznye dorogi (OAO RZhD)) is a Russian fully state-owned vertically integrated railway company, both manag ...

, which were cancelled and re-introduced a number of times. GoRail ran a daily daytime service from

Baltic station to

, leaving

early in the morning and arriving in

mid-afternoon, with a return service leaving in the early evening and arriving in

in the late evening. After a break from 2004 services commenced during 2007. During this time, on 8 May 2007,

announced that the route would be cancelled with effect from 29 May ostensibly due to low passenger numbers, but shortly after the

Bronze Night The Bronze Night ( et, Pronksiöö), also known as the April Unrest (') and April Events ('), refers to the riots in Estonia surrounding the controversial 2007 relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet World War II memorial in Talli ...

protests in Tallinn. GO Rail

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Alar Pinsel described the Russian reasoning as "difficult to believe". The cancellation was retracted a day later, and the train service was never actually interrupted. GoRail announced the cancellation of the service in July 2008, citing high infrastructure and fuel costs as reasons. Services then ran again, continuing to Moscow, from 2012 until they ended in 2020 at the beginning of the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

References

External links

*
GoRail timetable

Go Group corporate site
''www.gogroup.ee''

''www.railfaneurope.net''
St. Petersburg Times tourism feature on Tallinn, mentioning GoRail
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorail Railway companies of Estonia Railway companies of Russia

History

Tallinn - St Petersburg and Moscow rail services

See also

References

External links