News

The Rail Baltica Global Forum organisers are carefully monitoring the public health situation in Europe and, considering the progressive spread of COVID-19, have decided to conduct the event online on 23 April. The in-person event will be carried out in October 2020 in Rīga, Latvia. While we will not be able to ensure the entire planned programme online, we will focus on the most essential information, which is necessary for continuous implementation of the project.

European rail industry experts and policy makers met for the Rail Baltica Forum in Brussels on 5 March. The Forum presented an opportunity to reflect on the priorities for the European rail network in light of the EU’s financial perspectives for 2021-2027 and the European Green Deal. Rail Baltica project implementers presented the current project status and maturity as well as its added value for Europe. 

RB Rail AS, the joint venture of Rail Baltica, has begun the implementation of a Planning, Scheduling and Risk reporting software to ensure efficient management of all project activities and resources. The software will not only improve the existing project control practices but also serve as a measure to speed up the implementation of the project.

Today more than 100 rail industry experts and policy makers will meet for the Rail Baltica Forum in Brussels. The Forum presents an opportunity to reflect on the priorities for the European rail network development in light of the EU’s financial perspectives for 2021-2027 and the European Green Deal. Furthermore, Rail Baltica project implementers will present the current project status and maturity as well as its added value for Europe. 

As of March 1, Tõnu Grünberg, an experienced senior executive of telecommunications sector, will be appointed CEO of Rail Baltic Estonia, a company implementing the Rail Baltica project in Estonia.

An international team of experts has started working on a study which will evaluate the most optimal way to integrate the existing railway network and the new Rail Baltica infrastructure in a single and coordinated railway network for Latvia. Taking into consideration that several railway infrastructure projects being developed at the same time as Rail Baltica, such as infrastructure adaptation for the new rolling stock and electrification, the study will propose a clear roadmap for integrated railway infrastructure development for the Riga node.

The interim CEO of RB Rail AS, Agnis Driksna, and the representative of the OBERMEYER Planen + Beraten GmbH (Germany) and PROINTEC S.A. consortium, Jose Manuel Lendoiro, today signed a contract for engineering design and oversight of the construction of a new line from Pärnu to the Estonian-Latvian border. The signing of the contract means that the entire Rail Baltica mainline in Estonia is covered by design development works.

The joint venture of the Rail Baltica project, RB Rail AS has announced results of the “Design and design supervision services for the construction of the new line from Pärnu to the Estonian – Latvian border”. The proposal submitted by the association consisting of two international companies – OBERMEYER Planen + Beraten GmbH (Germany) and PROINTEC S.A. (Spain) – was selected as the most economically advantageous.

Last week, the quarterly Rail Baltica Task Force meeting was held in Vilnius, Lithuania. During it, the RB Rail AS interim CEO and CFO 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.

Anrī Leimanis, an independent Supervisory Board member, nominated by the Latvian shareholder, has been appointed to serve as the Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of RB Rail AS, the joint venture of Rail Baltica. Ahti Kuningas and Karolis Sankovski have assumed the positions as Vice-Chairpersons.

In the framework of the Rail Baltica project, until September of 2020, the Upeslejas-Riga Central Station; Torņakalns-Imanta and Riga International Airport-Misa sections will carry out geotechnical investigations. The purpose is to obtain the necessary technical information on the composition of the soil and its physical properties for the design of the Rail Baltica main route and the development of sustainable technical solutions.

The joint venture of Rail Baltica, RB Rail AS, has carefully reviewed the findings of the joint audit, that was conducted by the state audit institutions of the Baltic States in 2019. “We fully trust and respect the findings of the joint audit, which were delivered by independent audit institutions from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” says Agnis Driksna, interim CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of RB Rail AS. “We are committed to take action and have already started to implement necessary measures to achieve tangible change in the areas highlighted in the audit.”

Companies responsible for detailed technical design of Rail Baltica section from Kaunas to Lithuanian-Latvian state border, Spanish IDOM and Lithuanian UAB Kelprojektas, had completed site investigations for the first main line section. According Antanas Šnirpūnas, Head of RB Rail AS in Lithuania, key geodesic, geologic and geotechnical investigations had been completed in the 78 km long section Kaunas-Ramygala.