Rail Baltica is the largest railway infrastructure project in the history of the Baltic States, which will see the construction of an electrified, European-standard double-track railway linking Warsaw, Kaunas, Vilnius, Panevėžys, Riga, Perm and Tallinn.
The total length of the Rail Baltica line in the Baltics is 870km: 392km in Lithuania, 265km in Latvia and 213km in Estonia. The project is due for completion in 2030.
The new agreement between Litgrid, LTG Infra and RB Rail allows for the preparation of the electricity transmission network in Lithuania for the electrification of Rail Baltica. A total of five sites are to be prepared for integrating the Rail Baltica traction substations into Litgrid’s existing network.
“The signed cooperation agreement with Litgrid, LTG Infra, and RB Rail, confirming the division of works and responsibilities, is significant for the application for further funding for Rail Baltica electrification and allows us to move forward with the work with our partners at a fast pace. Similar cooperation is taking place with transmission network operators also in Estonia and Latvia. This ensures consistency in project implementation in all countries,” said Irmantas Butkauskas, PMP, head of RB Rail’s Lithuanian branch.
Rokas Masiulis, Litgrid CEO, added, “By signing the cooperation agreement, we can already start planning resources and making plans so that when the electrification implementation phase starts, we will be ready to promptly approve the prepared technical designs of the structures, conclude the connection agreements, select the contractors for the installation and conversion works and other important steps.”
Vytis Zalimas, CEO of LTG – the company responsible for the Rail Baltica project in Lithuania, concluded: “Timely financing of the project is one of the cornerstones for efficient project execution. In this case, we are talking about financing the connection of the electricity transmission grids to the traction substations of the Rail Baltica project. Another important aspect of the signed agreement is that it defines the principles of cooperation, which will enable parallel preparations for the next important stage of the project – electrification – to be carried out while the construction of the railway track is still underway.”
The Rail Baltica project is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). RB Rail, a joint venture between Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, established to implement Rail Baltica, is submitting EU funding applications for Rail Baltica on behalf of the beneficiaries.
It is also the central contracting authority in all countries for the procurement of studies, plans, designs, subsystems (control, command and signaling, and energy and electrification), raw materials, and key components for the global project, as well as for the cross-border railway sections.