News

On 3 November, Implementing Body of Rail Baltica project in Latvia –Eiropas Dzelzceļa līnijas, Ltd. – has announced an international construction tender for the Rail Baltica station and related infrastructure in Riga International Airport. The first phase is devoted to the selection of qualified candidates. The entire scope of the tender includes the Rail Baltica station building in Riga International Airport, overpass, access roads, embankment, 6 km long section of railway tracks and overpass over K. Ulmaņa gatve.

On October 30, 2019, RB Rail AS Project Manager Artūrs Caune visited first year students of Transportation Systems Engineering at Riga Technical University. The purpose of this visit was to introduce young professionals to the future opportunities offered by Rail Baltica.

Today Timo Riihimäki, RB Rail AS Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Management Board has announced his resignation due to personal reasons. He will carry out his duties until 19 December 2019. 

In order to deploy, implement and maintain Rail Baltica Common Data Environment for building information management system (BIM), RB Rail AS has entered into a contract with one of the leading global providers of software solutions Bentley Systems International Ltd. With this, Rail Baltica global project is going to deploy and set up a cloud-based Common Data Environment (CDE) to be used during the design, construction and operational phase of the railway line. The total amount of the five-year contract is 1.224 million EUR (excluding VAT), that includes software development, implementation and maintenance as well as license fees and training of users. The funding is allocated from the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) budget.

Yesterday shareholders of Rail Baltica joint venture RB Rail AS approved a new Supervisory Board of the company. This appointment follows the decision of the Estonian shareholder to replace Riia Sillave, CEO of RB Estonia with Ahti Kuningas, Deputy Secretary General for Transport at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication of Estonia. According to the Commercial Law of Latvia, Supervisory Board must be reelected if a new member is appointed.

The Rail Baltica Joint Venture RB Rail AS has announced a tender for the provision of Notified Body (NoBo) services to assess and verify conformity of the Rail Baltica infrastructure with European Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI).

A study has assessed the impact of climate change on Rail Baltica operations and maintenance during the lifecycle of the line. Based on the analysis of past 30-year climate and weather data and national level climate projections, the study concluded that Baltic region would gradually experience milder winters with less snow, but more wet snow, freezing rain, glazed frost and ice formation events. In summertime, more frequent heatwaves are likely, leading to maximum temperatures around or even over 40o C.

Yesterday the quarterly Rail Baltica Task Force meeting was held in Tallinn, Estonia. During it, the Rail Baltica Joint Venture presented the progress of the project to the participants and we would like to share the presentation with you all as well! Here is the progress made in the Rail Baltica Global Project in the last quarter.

In the past six months Rail Baltica Global Project has firmly entered the design phase of the main line and related infrastructure objects. In response to this new chapter in the cycle of the project, the Joint Venture of the Baltic States is going to adjust its structure by introducing a new management board position – Chief Program Management Officer (CPMO). With an initial team of ten experts, CPMO will oversee the implementation of the Rail Baltica Master Plan in all three Baltic States.

The Rail Baltica project implementers and representatives of several non-governmental organizations in Latvia agreed on regular information exchange, mutual consultation and involvement in the implementation of the Rail Baltica project by signing a joint memorandum of cooperation.

RB Rail had published the tender for the Study on “Rail Baltica CCS-Subsystems procurement and deployment strategy”, which shall be carried out in Q4/2019 – Q1/2020. The objective of this Study is elaboration of the procurement and deployment strategy for the introduction of the state-of-the-art CCS-solution for the whole Rail Baltica line.

Site investigations for the main Rail Baltica line in Lithuania are currently underway in the Jonava region. Kelprojektas – a local company under the supervision of Spanish IDOM – is currently surveying the area from the towns of Švecarija to Šėta. Special attention is paid to the site where the almost 2km long railway bridge over river Neris will be built – it will be the longest in the Baltics.

Joint Venture of Rail Baltica RB Rail AS had the honour to meet with the delegation of the Logistics Alliance Germany led by Steffen Bilger (MP), Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure and Federal Government Coordinator for Freight Transport and Logistics, to discuss possible modes of cooperation between both sides in terms of logistics, focusing on freight transport.

The Rail Baltica Joint Venture RB Rail AS has announced a tender for the design and design supervision services of the Rail Baltica main line North and South sections in Latvia. 

5 July 2019, Riga – the Joint Venture of Rail Baltica signed two design contracts to commence design works on a 123 kilometres long central section from Upeslejas through Riga to Misa and from Vangaži through Salaspils to Misa. The design works are carried out on behalf of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia.