Lelle – Pärnu railway line

Lelle – Pärnu
A DR1BJ-2717 in Pärnu station
Route length:	Narrow gauge: 76.9 km
Gauge :	up to 1971: 750 mm 1520 mm
Legend from Tallinn 71.9 Lelle to Viljandi 80.3 Koogiste (station until 1969) 86.0 Eidapere (station until 2004) 92.1 Kõnnu (Hp from 1969, closed in 2010) by Vändra 101.3 Viluvere (station until 1969) 113.1 Tootsi 117.4 Tori (station until 1969) 123.5 Tammiste (Hp from 1969, closed 2011) Parnu 132.8 Sindi (closed in 1969) Sweater (since 2011) Pärnu Kaubajaam (personal stop since 1971) Industrial connection Pärnu – Mõisaküla railway line from Mõisaküla Parnu Pärnu raudteejaam (since 1976) 142.1 Papiniidu (closed in 1969) 148.8 Pärnu raudteejaam (1876–1972) Swell:

The Lelle – Pärnu railway is an Estonian railway line . It has the Russian track width of 1520 mm and is not electrified. The route is owned by Eesti Raudtee and Edelaraudtee is the operator of the route .

history

The following important information is missing from this article or section:

The historical part is incomplete, all information on the gauging of this former 750 mm route is missing. The information about the continuation to Riga is incorrect.

Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Pärnu got its first rail connection in 1896 when a narrow-gauge line with 750 mm gauge was opened between Valga and Pärnu. After Estonian independence in 1918, this connection no longer met traffic needs, as it meant a considerable detour for the connection from Pärnu to the capital Tallinn. Following on from the Tallinn – Lelle – Viljandi line, which was opened in 1901 with a gauge of 750 mm , Eesti Raudtee opened the line from Lelle to Pärnu in 1928. Instead of the previous 16 hours, the trains between Tallinn and Pärnu now only take six hours.

From 1959 to 1974, the Estonian 750 mm network was gradually discontinued by the operator at the time, the Soviet State Railway SŽD , or it was switched to the Russian broad gauge of 1520 mm. The line from Lelle to Pärnu was one of the re-tracked routes. In 1971 the re-tracked line was put into operation, in 1976 a short extension followed by a new line to today's passenger station.

Operation in the 2010s

Most recently, only two trains per day and direction ran from Lelle to Pärnu . One pair of trains each ran in the morning, the other in the evening. In Lelle there was a timely connection to trains to / from Tallinn . The travel time from Tallinn to Pärnu was around 2 hours 15 minutes, depending on the scheduled transfer time in Lelle. This meant that Tallinn could be reached from Pärnu in around 30 minutes. faster than at Edelaraudtee times (as of August 2014),

However, not all train stations between Lelle and Tallinn could be meaningfully reached from the direction of Pärnu, as the trains in the direction of Tallinn, which are connected to in Lelle, do not stop at all train stations. According to the timetable, this could only be avoided by very long transfer times. In 2014 it sometimes happened that the trains from Viljandi in Lelle were already so full that passengers had to stay behind.

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  Lelle

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  Koogiste

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  Tootsi

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  Parnu

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  Parnu (1926)

Cessation of operations

As of December 9, 2018, passenger traffic on the route was temporarily suspended and will not be resumed until the completion of Rail Baltica . In the meantime, travelers will have to change to buses in Rapla or Lelle.

The state has decided not to invest any more money in the maintenance of the Tallinn – Pärnu line. According to the operator Edelaraudtee from 2017, 17 million euros would have had to be invested in order to maintain the train connection between the two cities, although the possible maximum speed on the route would still not have been more than 80 km / h.

Despite the failure of the train connection, the offer is improved for travelers who will be offered three bus connections a day compared to two connections by train after the closure. The morning bus leaves earlier so travelers can be in Tallinn earlier. Further improvements can be found in Tori and Sindi , where the bus stops in the towns. Passengers traveling in both directions from the city of Vändra used to have to board the train at the nearby stations in Viluvere or Eidapere. Now the bus stops at the bus station in the middle of the city. The same applies to Tootsi , where the train station is two kilometers from the village.

The Rail Baltica route is expected to be completed by 2025 and to start operating in 2026.

literature

• Herman Gjisbert Hesselink, Norbert Tempel: Railways in the Baltic States. Lok-Report publishing house, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-921980-51-8

Web links

Commons : Lelle – Pärnu railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Timetable 2015 on elron.ee. (PDF) December 13, 2015, accessed December 16, 2016 (Estonian). 
• Timetable 2018 on elron.ee. (PDF) November 12, 2018, accessed November 7, 2018 (Estonian). 
• Railway line Tallinn-Lelle-Pärnu, Estonia. (Movie). In: youtube.com. October 2013, accessed December 18, 2016 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Association of Central European Railway Administrations (ed.): Station directory of the European railways . (formerly Dr. KOCH's station directory). 52nd edition. Barthol & Co., Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1939.
2. ^ Association of Central European Railway Administrations (ed.): Station directory of the European railways . (formerly Dr. KOCH's station directory). 52nd edition. Barthol & Co., Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1939.
3. ↑ Helen Mihelson: Puupüsti tais rong jättis reisijad pika ninaga. tarbija24.postimees.ee, April 20, 2014, accessed December 16, 2016 (Estonian). 
4. ↑ Dario Cavegn: Tallinn-Pärnu railway line to be closed permanently in December. Eesti Rahvusringhääling, November 6, 2018, accessed on November 7, 2018 .