Rail Baltica: Europe’s biggest cross-border project enters full-scale build
As Lithuania awarded two new civil works contracts worth EUR 376 million this month, Rail Baltica crossed a threshold.
After years dominated by design studies, environmental reviews, and coordination between three national governments, Europe’s largest greenfield rail corridor is now moving into full-scale construction. The latest funding tranche from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility — EUR 295.5 million — and a EUR 1.77 billion electrification package signal that this is no longer a planning exercise. The 870-kilometre line linking the Baltic states to Poland and the European standard-gauge network is finally taking visible shape.
QUICK TAKE
The issue: Rail Baltica has been in preparation since 2014, but coordination complexity and cost escalation slowed physical progress.
The numbers: • 870 km of new 1,435 mm gauge line across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania • EUR 1.77 billion electrification contract awarded to Elecnor/Cobra consortium • EUR 295.5 million in new CEF funding (2025 call) • 43% of the route now construction-ready
Why it matters: This is the EU’s most complex cross-border infrastructure project under construction. Its success or failure will set the template for future TEN-T Core Network corridors — and test whether three national agencies can deliver a single operational railway.
What Rail Baltica really is
Rail Baltica will connect Warsaw to Tallinn via Kaunas and Riga — 870 kilometres of entirely new standard-gauge track designed for passenger speeds up to 249 km/h and freight loads of 25 tonnes per axle. A ferry link from Tallinn to Helsinki extends the corridor into Finland. The project replaces the Soviet-era 1,520 mm gauge that still isolates the Baltic rail network from the rest of Europe.
Co-financed through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the line is being built by RB Rail AS — the joint venture coordinating design and procurement — alongside the three national infrastructure managers: LTG Infra in Lithuania, Edzus Dzelzceļš in Latvia, and Eesti Raudtee in Estonia.
Progress by country
Lithuania has moved fastest. Some 114 kilometres are now under active construction. The two latest contracts — EUR 248.9 million to Kauno Tiltai for the 24.4-kilometre Ramygala–Berčiūnai section, and EUR 126.9 million to HISK for the 12.3-kilometre Berčiūnai–Joniškėlis segment — will deliver earthworks, drainage, and structures between 2028 and 2030. These sections form part of the main line running north from Kaunas toward the Latvian border.
Latvia is advancing station works near Riga and preparing new procurement packages for cross-country earthworks. Estonia has broken ground on the Ülemiste multimodal hub in Tallinn and finalised design for the route north to Rapla. Across all three countries, roughly 43 percent of the corridor is now classified as construction-ready.
System packages set the pace
Civil works alone do not make a railway. The critical path now runs through system integration — electrification, signalling, and track installation. In 2024, the Elecnor/Cobra consortium won the electrification package, worth approximately EUR 1.77 billion. The contract covers the entire 870-kilometre route with 2×25 kV AC 50 Hz supply and ten traction substations. Work is scheduled to run from 2025 through 2030.
ERTMS deployment and tracklaying packages remain under procurement. The challenge is not technical — these are proven systems — but organisational. Three national infrastructure companies must coordinate standards, interfaces, and commissioning schedules to deliver a single operational corridor. Fragmentation at this stage could delay the target of phased operations starting in 2028 and full commissioning by the early 2030s.
Funding, risks, and the bigger picture
The latest CEF allocation — EUR 295.5 million split between Estonia (EUR 47.1 million), Latvia (EUR 153.5 million), and Lithuania (EUR 94.9 million) — keeps the project on track. But inflation and timetable pressure have forced a staged delivery model. Single-track sections will open first, with full double-track capacity following later. This reduces upfront capital costs but complicates early-phase operations.
Rail Baltica carries weight beyond passenger and freight transport. It is a TEN-T Core Network priority and a NATO military-mobility corridor. The line will enable rapid deployment of personnel and equipment across the Baltic region — a factor that has kept political support strong even as budgets tightened. A decade after the first design contracts, the corridor is finally taking visible shape. Whether it meets its 2030 goal depends less on engineering than on whether three national organisations can function as one.
WHAT THIS MEANS
For operators: Planning for rolling-stock procurement, maintenance bases, and cross-border path allocation should accelerate now. Interoperability between national regimes will determine commercial viability.
For suppliers: Multiple tenders in signalling, power systems, and superstructure will follow within 2025–26. The scale favours large consortia, but subsystem packages may open opportunities for specialist firms.
For policymakers: Watch coordination between the three national infrastructure bodies. Fragmentation in standards, procurement, or commissioning could still push the 2030 timeline into the mid-2030s — and inflate costs further.