A new train route between Vilnius and Tallinn was launched on January 6, extending the Vilnius-Riga service that had been running for over a year now.
Rail operators from the three Baltic countries – LTG Link, Vivi and Elron – have aligned their train schedules to make it possible for passengers to travel from Vilnius to Tallinn or vice versa in 10 hours with two transfers – in Riga and in the Latvian-Estonian border town of Valga.
Trains will operate daily, departing from Tallinn at 10:25 and arriving in Vilnius at 21:00, and leaving the Lithuanian capital at 7:05 and reaching the Estonian capital at 17:35.
The route will also provide a train connection to Estonia’s second-largest city of Tartu.
Passengers will initially need to buy separate tickets in each country, but all three carriers aim to create a unified ticketing platform as soon as possible, according to LTG Link, the passenger subsidiary of Lithuania’s state-owned railway company Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways, LTG).
Until now, travelling by train from Vilnius to the Estonian capital was possible but inconvenient due to uncoordinated schedules, with the trip taking over a day.
LTG Group CEO Egidijus Lazauskas has said that LTG Link aims to make it possible for travellers to reach Tallinn with just one transfer. (LRT)