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Warsaw-Vilnius Returning in 2021

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LNW-GW Joint

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Poland and Lithuania have confirmed a service will link these two EU capital cities in 2021.
It involves a route via Kaunas, where a change of trains will be necessary because of the break of gauge.
Rail Baltica, when it is built, will provide a through service on standard gauge metals.
A letter of intent for the launch of a Warszawa – Vilnius passenger service was signed by the Lithuanian national railway’s passenger business LTG Link and its Polish counterpart PKP Intercity on September 17.
The service is expected to start in late 2021, offering a journey time between the two capitals of 8 h including a change of trains at the break-of-gauge in Kaunas. Initial ridership is estimated at 35 000 passengers/year. The need to change trains would be removed once the 1 435 mm gauge tracks are extended to Vilnius as part of the Rail Baltica project.

The two cities were on the original St Petersburg-Warsaw broad gauge railway of the Russian Empire via Hrodna/Grodno, which now cuts across a corner of Belarus which necessitates non-EU border controls.
 
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AlbertBeale

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Poland and Lithuania have confirmed a service will link these two EU capital cities in 2021.
It involves a route via Kaunas, where a change of trains will be necessary because of the break of gauge.
Rail Baltica, when it is built, will provide a through service on standard gauge metals.


The two cities were on the original St Petersburg-Warsaw broad gauge railway of the Russian Empire via Hrodna/Grodno, which now cuts across a corner of Belarus which necessitates non-EU border controls.

The route across the corner of Belarus at Grodno also had through Tallinn-Riga-Vilnius-Warsaw services until the 1990s (I used the Tallinn-Warsaw train myself once); but when the 3 Baltic states joined the EU, nasty socialist things like railways were downgraded for financial support in the brave new era of thrusting road-based capitalism. (Or something.) So the through Warsaw-Tallinn route planned as the Rail Baltica project (of which this new Polish-border-to-Kaunus standard gauge stretch is presumably a part) is not some magic new connection, but the replacing [albeit with speedier equipment!] of a connection that existed for generations, after a 30-year hiatus.
 

Gag Halfrunt

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The neglect of nasty socialist railways in favour of shiny new capitalist roads probably began as soon as the Baltic states gained independence from the USSR.
 

AlbertBeale

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The neglect of nasty socialist railways in favour of shiny new capitalist roads probably began as soon as the Baltic states gained independence from the USSR.

Quite likely! Bbut it was encouraged/exacerbated by them linking up with the EU.
 

geoffk

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Are you saying the EU is anti-rail? Not sure that I have a view myself, but many cross-border services seem to have disappeared or been downgraded, or not improved to take advantage of Schengen, e.g. Ljubljana to Trieste.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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The EU certainly didn't want to perpetuate arm-of-state railway monopolies, which all the eastern Europe ones were.
It's taken a couple of decades to get them into commercial shape and start rolling out upgrade projects (with EU money of course - some of it ours).
Meanwhile many of them lost most of their traffic, like we did in the 50s, with the infrastructure deteriorating, same with other monopolies like steel and coal.
Motorways were easier to roll out, even in places like Ireland.
Borders were just an extra complication, especially with the non-EU states, plus the gauge problem.
 

AlbertBeale

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Are you saying the EU is anti-rail? Not sure that I have a view myself, but many cross-border services seem to have disappeared or been downgraded, or not improved to take advantage of Schengen, e.g. Ljubljana to Trieste.

There are cross-border rail journeys which were easy once (even when crossing the Iron Curtain, or - later - crossing between EEC and non-EEC countries) which became more difficult or even impossible when the countries concerned all joined the EU. The EU does seem to have been the death-knell of what were once integrated public service rail systems in Europe. Both possible journeys, and the ability to buy tickets anywhere for anywhere, have deteriorated under the EU. Yes - Italy-Yugoslavia/Slovenia is an example of that - one of many.

The EU certainly didn't want to perpetuate arm-of-state railway monopolies, which all the eastern Europe ones were.
It's taken a couple of decades to get them into commercial shape and start rolling out upgrade projects (with EU money of course - some of it ours).
Meanwhile many of them lost most of their traffic, like we did in the 50s, with the infrastructure deteriorating, same with other monopolies like steel and coal.
Motorways were easier to roll out, even in places like Ireland.
Borders were just an extra complication, especially with the non-EU states, plus the gauge problem.

Re "The EU certainly didn't want to perpetuate arm-of-state railway monopolies, which all the eastern Europe ones were." And so were the western Europe ones. Perhaps that's why you could walk into a minor station in one part of Europe and book a journey across a border in another part of Europe, with no difficulty over "Which company's ticket do you want?", or "We don't sell tickets for their trains", or similar nonsense. A railway ticket was a railway ticket; all the different railway administrations co-operated rather than competed as now. It really was easier and more integrated then.

Re "Borders were just an extra complication," The complication of borders didn't stop rail travel across the continent a generation ago! It's ironic that a body which claimed to be making borders less relevant has had the opposite effect when it comes to rail travel.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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For the EU (heavily backed by the UK when we were a member) it was about commercialising transport and generating a level playing field between countries/operators.
It didn't explicitly mean privatising rail, but allowing multiple operators and new entrants meant competition and a focus on costs and revenues.
Western railways were generally at arms' length from the government (as BR was), but the eastern ones were part of the state apparatus like defence.
They are a couple of decades behind the western systems, but the ones now in the EU are following the same path.
Things like TEN routes (and Rail Baltica) are changing the map gradually.
Bus and air transport, and freight more generally, has gone the same way, only further and faster.
 

AlbertBeale

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For the EU (heavily backed by the UK when we were a member) it was about commercialising transport and generating a level playing field between countries/operators.
It didn't explicitly mean privatising rail, but allowing multiple operators and new entrants meant competition and a focus on costs and revenues.
Western railways were generally at arms' length from the government (as BR was), but the eastern ones were part of the state apparatus like defence.
They are a couple of decades behind the western systems, but the ones now in the EU are following the same path.
Things like TEN routes (and Rail Baltica) are changing the map gradually.
Bus and air transport, and freight more generally, has gone the same way, only further and faster.

Yes indeed - the mantra is competition rather than co-operation - just what isn't needed for a public service (and for the ecosystem)!
 

edwin_m

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There are cross-border rail journeys which were easy once (even when crossing the Iron Curtain, or - later - crossing between EEC and non-EEC countries) which became more difficult or even impossible when the countries concerned all joined the EU. The EU does seem to have been the death-knell of what were once integrated public service rail systems in Europe. Both possible journeys, and the ability to buy tickets anywhere for anywhere, have deteriorated under the EU. Yes - Italy-Yugoslavia/Slovenia is an example of that - one of many.
But was it on joining the EU or was it a result of the demise of Communism a few years later and the general shift away from rail transport?

It's arguable that the countries of Eastern Europe were in a similar situation in the 1990s to what the UK was in the 1950s-60s, when cars became widely available, affordable, reliable and comfortable, and the unmodernised rail network couldn't compete. So essentially the equivalent of what we got with Beeching, which was of course before we joined the EEC.

The western European countries, not having the restraint of communism, all saw something similar between the 50s and the 70s whether EU members or not. This no doubt saw some cross-border rail links deteriorate along with the rest of their rail networks. But others have since improved, for example France has through high speed service to five other countries. Can you point to some links between Western EU members (so not affected by the communism issue) that have deteriorated and you consider this to be a consequence of EU membership?
 

CW2

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In my view there have been many more border crossing improvements than deteriorations in the last 30 years (since German reunification). Some crossings between former Eastern Bloc countries have closed to passenger traffic, but that's mostly down to a change in travel patterns. I'm not looking forward to joining a long slow queue for a passport check at Hoek van Holland, Zeebrugge, or wherever in future.
 

duesselmartin

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I would say that international trains from Italy to Germany and France deteriorated. The loss of the Lisboa to Madrid day service was mentioned elsewhere.
Minor lines between countries also closed over the years.
If you count Air transport liberalisation as an EU cause than maybe that, otherwise no.
 

AlbertBeale

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I would say that international trains from Italy to Germany and France deteriorated. The loss of the Lisboa to Madrid day service was mentioned elsewhere.
Minor lines between countries also closed over the years.
If you count Air transport liberalisation as an EU cause than maybe that, otherwise no.

And it's not just that there some through international connections (both long-distance and local) have disappeared, but - as I pointed out earlier - the current "commercial" mentality has meant that journeys (and ticketing) are more fragmented. Whatever links do or don't exist, the fact that you can't easily get integrated through ticketing, when it used to be straightforward, is a result (I would say) of political and ideological decisions. The EU has chosen to encourage - including financially - air travel rather than rail travel, and has (by it's deliberate policies) pushed what was a Europe-wide system with fairly integrated railway ticketing to become the off-putting mess it is today.

In my view there have been many more border crossing improvements than deteriorations in the last 30 years (since German reunification). Some crossings between former Eastern Bloc countries have closed to passenger traffic, but that's mostly down to a change in travel patterns. I'm not looking forward to joining a long slow queue for a passport check at Hoek van Holland, Zeebrugge, or wherever in future.

The formalities at border crossings are quite a separate issue from the presence or not of through international rail services and the ease of through international (and co-operative) ticketing. You can have otherwise easy rail journeys with slow border checks; you can have easy (or no) border checks but a lack of simple rail connections to make use of that fact. What the two issues have in common, however, is that they're both a functin of political/ideological decisions.
 

CW2

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The formalities at border crossings are quite a separate issue from the presence or not of through international rail services and the ease of through international (and co-operative) ticketing. You can have otherwise easy rail journeys with slow border checks; you can have easy (or no) border checks but a lack of simple rail connections to make use of that fact. What the two issues have in common, however, is that they're both a function of political/ideological decisions.
I don't think it's that easy to separate cause and effect. Slow border formalities act as a deterrent on movement, so with fewer people travelling services may be withdrawn as unviable.
Can you give some examples where you think I'm mistaken?
 

AlbertBeale

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I don't think it's that easy to separate cause and effect. Slow border formalities act as a deterrent on movement, so with fewer people travelling services may be withdrawn as unviable.
Can you give some examples where you think I'm mistaken?

I didn't mean that one might not affect the other (of course they will). But different issues have their own causes too - though everything inter-relates, of course. I'd suggest that whether or not a particular route has a better or worse service, on account - perhaps - of formalities deterring people, or whatever other reason, that's no excuse for erecting barriers to through ticketing. My feeling, from my own experience, is that the lack of integration of ticketing is itself a major deterrent. And the lack of easy ticketing is itself a result of more fragmented and competitive (rather than co-operative) services. Some routes might have changed anyway - but it seems self-evident that if you make organising a journey harder, fewer people will undertake it irrespective of other factors. However, both re-organising railways to be competitive, and deciding what formalities are required at borders, are political decisions - and (in my view) in both of these categories the decisions in recent years have frequently been "bad" ones.
 

Austriantrain

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I would say that international trains from Italy to Germany and France deteriorated.

That is a consequence of very specific Italien decisions a number of years ago, when there was not much interest in cross-border traffic, especially of the marginal kind (where some efforts are necessary to earn money).

A similar approach by the French did not help.

Services from Italy to Austria and Germany were mostly saved by the efforts of ÖBB and DB.

It has, in any case, nothing to do with the EU.
 

AlbertBeale

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That is a consequence of very specific Italien decisions a number of years ago, when there was not much interest in cross-border traffic, especially of the marginal kind (where some efforts are necessary to earn money).

A similar approach by the French did not help.

Services from Italy to Austria and Germany were mostly saved by the efforts of ÖBB and DB.

It has, in any case, nothing to do with the EU.

The one way it could relate to the EU is the EU rule giving tax exemptions to international air travel, hence skewing the market against rail travel and towards air travel.
 

Austriantrain

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The one way it could relate to the EU is the EU rule giving tax exemptions to international air travel, hence skewing the market against rail travel and towards air travel.

I am quite sure there are international agreements to this effect which bind many more countries than just EU members.

In any case, I agree that this needs to change urgently.
 

MarcVD

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What is also a clear deterrent is the fact that affordable tickets are bound to a specific train on a specific date, with the risk to lose the entire ticket price just because of a missed connection. Before that, CIV tickets were valid two months, on any train, and only the reservation price was at risk.
 

AlbertBeale

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I am quite sure there are international agreements to this effect which bind many more countries than just EU members.

In any case, I agree that this needs to change urgently.

The VAT zero-rating of international air travel is specifically an EU agreement (after all, VAT is an EU-derived tax); air travel is the only thing which is universally zero-rated in all EU countries (as it has to be by treaty); in some EU member states it's the only thing which is zero-rated. Some other aspects of the preferential tax arrangements for air travel no doubt derive from wider international agreements. Though those wider agreements - while there might be arguments for not opting out of them unilaterally - don't have the force of law in the way that the VAT zero-rating does within the EU.
 

Austriantrain

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The VAT zero-rating of international air travel is specifically an EU agreement (after all, VAT is an EU-derived tax); air travel is the only thing which is universally zero-rated in all EU countries (as it has to be by treaty); in some EU member states it's the only thing which is zero-rated. Some other aspects of the preferential tax arrangements for air travel no doubt derive from wider international agreements. Though those wider agreements - while there might be arguments for not opting out of them unilaterally - don't have the force of law in the way that the VAT zero-rating does within the EU.

Not raising taxes on ticket sales (it does not matter if VAT or sales tax) is actually ICAO policy.

See:https://www.icao.int/publications/Documents/8632_2ed_en.pdf
Section IV.

VAT is raised on some domestic flights in the EU, e.g. in Germany (Not for connecting tickets though, for obvious competition reasons).
 

AlbertBeale

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Not raising taxes on ticket sales (it does not matter if VAT or sales tax) is actually ICAO policy.

See:https://www.icao.int/publications/Documents/8632_2ed_en.pdf
Section IV.

VAT is raised on some domestic flights in the EU, e.g. in Germany (Not for connecting tickets though, for obvious competition reasons).

Thanks for the ICAO reference. Yes, the EU "zero-VAT" rule applies specifically to international flights (including ones between member states). Taxes on internal flights are within the competence of the national authorities to fix. Typically, in the case of member states where international flights are the only thing zero-rated, then they do of course apply the standard rate to any internal flights.
 

Austriantrain

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Thanks for the ICAO reference. Yes, the EU "zero-VAT" rule applies specifically to international flights (including ones between member states). Taxes on internal flights are within the competence of the national authorities to fix. Typically, in the case of member states where international flights are the only thing zero-rated, then they do of course apply the standard rate to any internal flights.

Thank you for the interesting exchange.

I think we both agree that these privileges should go.
 

Memma

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Great news - especially given it looks like all three Baltic states have got their act into gear providing at least connecting service from Vilnius to Riga (albeit on weekends only) and Riga to Tallinn. An interesting alternative route to Helsinki!
 

AlbertBeale

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Thank you for the interesting exchange.

I think we both agree that these privileges should go.

We do indeed agree on that! Though I wonder when it'll happen...

Great news - especially given it looks like all three Baltic states have got their act into gear providing at least connecting service from Vilnius to Riga (albeit on weekends only) and Riga to Tallinn. An interesting alternative route to Helsinki!

And about time too [and even now only bitty connections], given how long ago they closed the through service which already existed, and had for generations! I travelled from a conference in Helsinki to see a friend in Heidelberg on the way back to the UK, via that route, more than a quarter of a century ago: ferry to Tallinn, stopping off for some meetings there, and then a through train all the way from Tallinn to Warsaw, then a quick connection onto a through train from there to Germany. How easy it used to be! (Apart from fun and games at Grodno.)
 
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Memma

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We do indeed agree on that! Though I wonder when it'll happen...



And about time too [and even now only bitty connections], given how long ago they closed the through service which already existed, and had for generations! I travelled from a conference in Helsinki to see a friend in Heidelberg on the way back to the UK, via that route, more than a quarter of a century ago: ferry to Tallinn, stopping off for some meetings there, and then a through train all the way from Tallinn to Warsaw, then a quick connection onto a through train from there to Germany. How easy it used to be! (Apart from fun and games at Grodno.)

When I travelled through the Baltics in 2014 I had to take the indirect route - Warsaw - Minsk - Vilnius - Minsk - Riga - St Petersburg - Tallinn - what a pain, and a lot of border crossings and visas.
It'll be great once they get Rail Baltica built and through standard gauge trains!
 
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