A few sights from Estonia and Latvia

tverskaya

Member
Toured around the baltics a bit so I thought I'd share a few pictures I managed to take. And I apologise for being a lousy photographer.

First two: Riga.
Third and fourth: Tallinn
Fifth - Tallinn trolleybus depot.
 

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tverskaya

Member
Technocrates said:
Estonia has probably been one of the better examples of development after communism, or so they say.

Yep. If it weren't for the huge Russian minority, I'd say, that in about ten years, the country would be near indistinguishable from Finland economically and maybe also culturally. The cities are westernizing at a great pace, the countryside does lag behind though (but that's something you can ignore, if you're just visiting)
 

tverskaya

Member
As for the rest of the rail service, I think that's one of the aspects which has taken a step back since Soviet times. While the commuter trains around Riga were in heavy use (used them a few times), it seems that long distance train traffic is in a fairly sorry state these days. This is indicated firstly by the fact that everyone advised me just to travel by bus (which works very well), instead of train, for longer distances and secondly by the size and the sleepiness of the Tallinn Baltic passenger station. About half a dozen platforms, but late weekday afternoon, when usually there should be at least some traffic at a train station of a capital with half a million inhabitants, there was only one four-carriage commuter train departing. My guess is that twenty years ago there might have been just a bit more traffic there.

Because I used the bus most of the time and didn't specifically go looking for trains, I didn't get a better look. Obviously urban lightrail transport is in a good state, given the appearance of even some probably less than ten year old material on the tracks, but then, the cities are where the money is in a post-communist country, and people with enough money will travel longer distances either by car or by plane.

On a side note, long distance train travel in Russia works very well by the way, but given the very long distances involved, that should not come as a surprise.

Freight seems to be the main rail business in the Baltics, but even that might be a bit less than in the old days, when there were a few lines supplying the red navy ports along the Baltic coast. Noticed mainly liquids being transported, even some very short, four cars and an engine trains, on a main line. Unfortunately didn't get any good pictures of those. From memory, obviously most material was of the local state railroads, but also spotted some Byelorussian material, and I'm quite sure that Russian trains make appearances quite often as well (And I don't believe they have differentiated the various systems (yet), so that changing locomotives at the border isn't required either.)

-Norm
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Norm, interesting comment about long distance trains, as in America that is not considered the passenger train's forte. Very few trains that require an overnight trip run more often than 3 times a week.
 

tverskaya

Member
The comment about long distance trains wasn't about their frequency. I don't have any hard data on hand, but there may well be some lines where there's no daily service, but as far as I can tell, the trains run on time and the material seems to be in an adequate condition, which in my opinion are better indicators of quality than the frequency of services (which often in the first place depends on the supply of passengers)
 
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