Finnish Railroad Organizations

Finnish railroading was for long almost isolated from the rest of the West European networks. Because of the isolation, during the latest 100 years the operations on the national network were mainly a monopoly of the state owned operator VR-Yhtyma (earlier Valtionrautatiet). During the EU membership period the railroads too have started to open for other operators and owners as well. The organizational structural change has also taken place. But even with several plans the old operator structures change extremely slowly, if at all.

Picture above: A brand new Matisa rail maintenance machine owned by Destia seen in Imatra early summer of 2010. After numerous failures in grinding the dominant operator VR's market share the competition formed an international alliance, headed by another Finnish state owned organizations Destia. Destia is best known for massive road construction and maintenance operation in Finland. With the international alliance the market operation was successful, and now the company has about 5-20% market share of the railroad maintenance in Finland, VR still having the rest. Below the logos of the international consortium can be seen on the older machine.

-- Click any picture to see a larger version of it! --

/// Refurbishing continuing down from here

See also material on the older page...

R123: * 1866 *

Created for 4rail.net by John McKey and Andreas Ehnberg. Pictures by Stanislav Voronin, Ilkka Siissalo, Hannu Peltola, Andreas Ehnberg and John McKey.

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Also in this section:

An IC2 fo VR pulled by Swiss type Sr2 has just left Pasila, Helsinki on it's way to Turku in the west

Finnish Railroads Main Page, a great place to start browsing this section.

Junakalusto Class Sm5 on test drive meets Sm4 of VR-Yhtyma in Kerava, just outside Helsinki, Finland

Finnish railroad organizations and railroad operators have their own pages, as well as the largest operator VR-Yhtyma and a newcomer to the field Junakalusto.

While much of the passenger traffic concentrates around the capital Helsinki, you might be interested in the roster pictures of VR-Yhtyma, Junakalusto and the city of Helsinki operator HKL. HKL operates the metro and narrow gauge trams.

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Dr14 unit 1866 of VR-Yhtyma
	Picture: The Zebra unit 1866 is taking it's turn on switching heavy passenger coaches and other rolling stock on the Ilmala depot area in Helsinki. There are usually two of the type at the time in use for this area, plus one or more Dv12 locomotives to handle part of the duties. Picture by John McKey.
	The UIC numbering for the 1866 would suggest that it runs at least 100 km/h, however the smaller text on the side reveals the truth: 35 km/h max! Intersting usage for the common European numbering... Picture by John McKey.
	This picture shows well the heavier than normal bogie structure used on this older Finnish diesel type. Picture by John McKey.

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