Eesti Raudtee
| AS Eesti Raudtee
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Public limited company (state owned) |
| founding | 1992 |
| Seat | Tallinn , Estonia |
| management | Erik Laidvee |
| Number of employees | 1,821 (2008) |
| sales | 1,650 million EEK (2008) |
| Branch | traffic |
| Website | www.evr.ee |
Eesti Raudtee ( EVR ) is the largest railway infrastructure company in Estonia . After a privatization attempt at the beginning of the new millennium, the Estonian state bought back the company (which at that time also had a freight transport division). Since then, it has been 100% state-owned again.
history
Development of the railway in what is now Estonia
The first railway line in what is now Estonia was opened continuously in 1870 by the Baltic Railway on the Paldiski - Tallinn - Tapa - Narva section . In the same year, the line from Narva was extended to the east on what is now Russia and linked to the existing connection between Saint Petersburg and Warsaw . The mostly ice-free Baltic ports in Paldiski and Tallinn received a connection with their Russian hinterland thanks to the railway line, which is customary in Russia with a gauge of 1524 mm ( broad gauge ) . Both ports were therefore able to record a strong upswing in the following years and quickly gained in importance, especially for grain transport.
In 1876 the railway connection between Tapa and Tartu was opened as the second line , which could be extended to Valga in 1887 . In Valga, the line was linked to the Pskow - Valga - Riga ( Latvia ) connection, which was completed in 1889 . In 1905 the Baltic Railway received another branch line from Keila (between Tallinn and Paldiski) to Haapsalu . In addition, shorter branch lines were built for freight traffic. In 1893 the Baltic Railway and the Pskov-Riga Railway merged, in 1906 they were merged with the Warsaw-Petersburg Railway to form the Northwest Railway and nationalized.
In addition to the broad-gauge lines, a network of narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of 750 mm was created in Estonia , the first section of which was opened in 1896 between Valga and Pärnu . In 1897 there was a connection from Mõisaküla to Viljandi , which could be extended from Viljandi to Tallinn until 1901 . This route was supplemented by a short branch route to Paide . These railways were operated by the First Russian Supply Railway AG , which operated other narrow-gauge lines in Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine.
During the First World War , the Russian army extended the branch line from Paide to Tamsalu on the broad-gauge railway from Tapa to Tartu to improve supplies . The German army, which occupied the Estonian islands Hiiumaa and Saaremaa in Operation Albion in 1917 , built a 600 mm narrow-gauge railway on the latter from the port of Roomassaare via Kuressaare to Orissaare .
The first Eesti Raudtee (1918 to 1940)
With the independence of Estonia in 1918, the existing railway companies Looderaudtee and Esimese Juurdeveoteede Selts as well as the publicly used parts of light railways of the Navy and the army became a joint Estonian railway company, the Eesti Vabariigi Raudtee (EVR). In total, the EVR took over around 650 km of broad-gauge lines and 340 km of narrow-gauge railways. Unlike the railways in Latvia and Lithuania, the railways in Estonia suffered less from the chaos of war. The broad gauge lines had not been switched to European standard gauge . The EVR was therefore able to start modernizing and expanding the network quickly.
The broad-gauge network was only expanded to include the route from Tartu to Petseri , which was completed in 1931, and plans for a connection from Tartu via Viljandi and Pärnu to Riisipere (on the route from Tallinn to Haapsalu) failed due to lack of funds. In 1924, the suburban line from Tallinn via Nõmme to Pääsküla was the first railway in the Baltic States to be electrified with 1500-volt direct current and partly expanded to double-track. For this purpose, EVR procured four electric multiple units of the EVR M series . The vehicle fleet was only expanded to include a few new steam locomotives, but the approximately 130 Russian-made locomotives that were taken over were thoroughly overhauled and modernized (including six locomotives of the Russian series Н (N) were modernized and referred to as the series Nkk ). In total, the EVR procured only ten new broad gauge locomotives of the Kk and Mtk series by 1940 . The four Kk2 class locomotives ordered from Henschel in 1939 based on the model of the DR class 62 were no longer delivered to EVR due to the war and were eventually sold to the Finnish VR .
The narrow-gauge network, which was run down after the war, was extensively expanded and renewed. First, in 1926, a new 750 mm line was opened from Sonda to Mustvee . In 1928, the connection from Tallinn to Pärnu was shortened by around 100 km with a new line from Lelle to Papiniidu near Pärnu. Trains now only need six hours instead of the previous 16 hours. A new line to Orajõe had already been built in 1923, branching off the line from Pärnu to Valga that had already existed before the war. In 1928 it was extended to Ainaži in Latvia using an old industrial railway , from where there was a connection to Riga. In 1929 the railway followed from Rapla to Virtsu , the port of the ferry connection to Muhu and Saaremaa . The narrow-gauge network had thus been expanded by around 220 km. The EVR was not able to implement any further plans. The 600 mm line on Saaremaa was closed, with the exception of the short section between the port of Roomassaare and Kuressaare. The remaining 3 km long route was sold to the city of Kuuressare in 1923 and served as required according to the steamship courses.
A total of 95 locomotives were taken over for the narrow-gauge railways in 1918. They were supplemented by 20 new copies of the Uk series and the Sk series , a 1'D tender locomotive that is quite heavy for a narrow-gauge, and was mainly supplied by the Tallinn mechanical engineering company Krull. With these locomotives, the express trains from Tallinn to Pärnu could be accelerated significantly; for narrow-gauge railways they reached impressive average speeds of around 50 km / h. A special feature of the EVR narrow-gauge network was the use of sleeping cars , in 1928 four new sleeping cars were procured to replace older ones. They were used between Tallinn and Viljandi. The first diesel multiple units were also used on this route from 1935. On a special trip with the railcars of the series DeM from Tallinn to Pärnu, the EVR set a new speed record for a 750 mm track with 102 km / h, the 146 km long route was covered with an average of 69.2 km / h.
In 1940 the EVR operated a route network of 1,447 km, of which 772 km were broad-gauge and 675 km were narrow-gauge routes. During the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in 1940, the EVR was incorporated into the Soviet state railway.
Eesti Raudtee since 1992
After Estonia regained its independence, Eesti Vabariigi Raudtee (EVR) was re-established as a state railway on January 1, 1992 and entrusted with the management of the Estonian railway. Not only the railway lines, but also locomotives (including numerous machines from the ČME3 series ) and wagons from Soviet stocks could be taken over from Estonia . Soon thereafter, there was a division between EVR Ekspress (international long-distance transport), Edelaraudtee (regional transport on the coast), Elektriraudtee (Tallinn S-Bahn) and EVR (freight transport and regional transport in the hinterland).
In 2001, a 66 percent stake in EVR was acquired by Baltic Rail Services (BRS) for $ 58 million . Numerous used American locomotives of the C30-7 and C36-7 series were imported from General Electric under private management . In 2007 EVR was nationalized again.
The structure of the Estonian railway system is currently such that Edelaraudtee is the infrastructure operator of the Tallinn-Viljandi route and Eesti Raudtee operates the other routes. Elektriraudtee ( operating as Elron since 2013 ) organizes the entire national and EVR Ekspress ( renamed GoRail ) the cross-border passenger transport to Russia. Operail , which emerged from the subsidiary EVR Cargo founded by Eesti Raudtee in 2009 and has been independent since 2012, provides freight transport services. Eesti Raudtee is therefore only active as a railway infrastructure company .
literature
- Herman Gjisbert Hesselink, Norbert Tempel: Railways in the Baltic States. Lok-Report publishing house, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-921980-51-8
- Küllo Arjakas: Eesti raudtee 140 - Sissevaateid Ajalukku. Eesti Raudtee, Tallinn 2010, ISBN 978-9949-21-397-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Eesti Raudtee: Annual Report 2008. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 10, 2007 ; accessed on July 17, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Baltic Rail Services Completes the Purchase of a Controlling Interest in Eesti Raudtee, Estonian State Railways . Railroad Development Corporation. September 4, 2001. Retrieved November 16, 2009.
- ^ Estonia Railways - the heavy hauler . Railways Illustrated. November 2003. Retrieved November 16, 2009.
- ^ About Estonian Railways: Corporate information: History . Eesti Raudtee. Archived from the original on January 8, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 10, 2008.
