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| Finnish Railways (VR) |
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Pendolino express train at Helsinki station
Thursday, April 20, 2006
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VR or VR Group (VR-Yhtymä) is a state-owned railway company in Finland, and formerly known as Valtionrautatiet (The State's Railway). Its most important function is the operation of freight and passenger rail services. Maintenance and construction of the railway network itself is the responsibility of the Finnish Rail Administration (Ratahallintokeskus - RHK). Both operation and network were originally handled by the parent company Valtionrautatiet, which split into the two current ones.
Companies in the VR group also provide road freight and bus services, carry out catering activities and real estate management, and provide data, technological, and telecommunications services for the transport and logistics sectors. The group owns a bus company Pohjolan Liikenne and a road freight haulage company Transpoint.
Finnish trains are spacious, comfortable and clean. The scenery among the lines is beautiful, especially in Eastern Finland where there are very many lakes. Because in most parts of Finland density of population is low, Finland is not very well suited for railways. Commuter services are nowadays rare outside Helsinki area, but there are express train connections between most of the cities. As in France, most trains are coming or going to the capital city Helsinki. In addition there are also good ExpressBus and aeroplane connections, both of which are generally little or a lot more expensive than trains. Buses are sometimes faster and/or cheaper than trains (e.g. Helsinki-Pori).
The only international passenger rail services from Finland are to Russia. There are two passenger trains a day to St Petersburg, called Sibelius and Repin, and one overnight train to Moscow via St Petersburg called Tolstoi. There are plans to modernise the tracks between Finland and Russia to enable them to support higher speed Pendolino trains. In addition to passenger traffic, there is regular freight traffic between Finland and Russia. Domestic freight services are provided by VR Cargo, part of VR Group.
The Finnish State Railways was founded by the Senate of Finland in 1862, when Finland was a Grand Principality under Imperial Russia, and was built to the broader Russian track gauge (1524 mm, i.e. 5 ft. exactly), rather than to the Western European standard gauge of 1435 mm. In the coming decades the company incorporated many private Finnish railroads, such as the Hanko-Hyvinkää Railroad, and several others. The Finnish Railway Museum is also the official company museum.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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