Kemijärvi railway station is a railway station located in

Kemijärvi Kemijärvi (; ; ) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the sub-region of Eastern Lapland. History The first permanent settler inhabitant of Kemijärvi was Paavali Ollinpoika Halonen, who moved from the region of Oulu, fro ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. It was opened in 1934 when the railway was extended from

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; ; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland (Finland), Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately , while the Rovaniemi su ...

to Kemijärvi. It is operated by the

VR Group VR-Group Plc (, ), commonly known as VR, is a government-owned railway company in Finland. VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 commuter rail services every day. With ...

(the Finnish State Railways), and maintained by RHK, the

Finnish Transport Agency The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (, ), shortened to FTIA, is a Finnish government agency responsible for the maintenance of Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders ...

. In September 2006, the station was closed when the direct overnight train service between Kemijärvi and Helsinki was controversially withdrawn, with VR stating that its new

sleeping car The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car (rail), passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the main American innovator and owner of sl ...

trainsVR Group
could not operate with the diesel locomotives needed for the non-electrified railway north of Rovaniemi. However, in March 2008 the overnight train to/from Helsinki was restored using a generator car that could provide hotel power behind a diesel.Finnish Railway News
/ref> On 11 March 2014,

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. In the context of history of technology and economic development, electrification refe ...

reached the station from

, allowing seamless service to Helsinki and making Kemijärvi the northernmost electrified point of the Finnish railway system. At the end of winter 2014, VR was operating one daily overnight passenger train (with

s) from Kemijärvi to and from

Helsinki Central railway station Helsinki Central Station (, ) (List of IATA-indexed railway stations, HEC) is the main station for commuter rail and long-distance trains departing from Helsinki, Finland. About 200,000 people "pass through the station" every day, half of whom ar ...

. For the 2024-2025 winter holiday season a weekly day train is run as a continuation from Rovaniemi. This extension was funded by Kemijärvi and neighbouring munincipalities. The railway extends beyond Kemijärvi to

Salla Salla, known as Kuolajärvi until 1936, is a municipality of Finland, located in Lapland. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The nearby settlement of Sallatunturi is ...

, but the segment between Isokylä and Salla was closed in December 2012. There are plans, however, to reopen the line and continue it all the way to

Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...

as the

Northeast Passage The Northeast Passage (abbreviated as NEP; , ) is the Arctic shipping routes, shipping route between the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Pacific Oceans, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia. The western route through the islan ...

opens to traffic. The station building in Kemijärvi, a centrally heated

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

structure with a total volume of , was constructed in 1954–55. Its rooms originally intended for use by passenger services include a waiting room, café and post office; its staff amenities include a pair of offices and personal rooms for use by the

train dispatcher A train dispatcher (US), rail traffic controller (Canada), train controller (Australia), train service controller (Singapore) or signaller (UK), is employed by a railroad to direct and facilitate the movement of trains over an assigned territ ...

and stationmaster, a break room, and an apartment for use by a janitor. The building bears a resemblance to that of

, built earlier in 1952–53.

References

External links

VR – Kemijärvi station

Railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

Railway stations in Lapland (Finland) Railway stations in Finland opened in 1934 {{Finland-railstation-stub