Things and times move on.   Did I understand that WHSmiths in some stations have stopped selling newspapers, and indeed when I sit in a train I look around and see everyone on their phones - messaging (or in some irritating cases hearing them talk) and few reading. But yet having said that, on my current travels my packing - light to contain the utter bare minimum - still includes the European Rail Timetable which has been heavily used throughout my trip in addition to the journey planning App.

A plea to whoever buys the business - you are taking on a valued product. Please nurture it, promote it, and may it have a long and effective life ahead of it, as it already had behind it.

"Thames Valley" is an interesting one to define - to me it's synonymous with the "Thames Basin" - i.e. the land that drains out between Essex and Kent and it was probably that way to the early railway builders too - uphill from London to the watershed at - well, on the Berks and Hants line as far as Crofton / Savernake, and on the Bristol line to perhaps Royal Wooton Bassett, up to Cropredy or Claydon on the way to Birmingham, to Sapperton on the way to Gloucester.  They had to pull and push trains from London against gravity up to the summits.  "Thames and its tributaries", I suppose. And I note that this thread is posted in "Across the West" rather than "London to Reading", so Newbury / Bedwyn are in defines scope.

But

"Thames Valley" is a huge area, and there are other more specific boards such as the Kennet Valley / Berks and Hants line one where posts about that area will get more attention and not dilute the thread about the GW^▸ (Great Western) mainline with things about the line through Newbury which of course also features in the "London to the West of England" section.  Messy, isn't it?

No-one is wrong or right on this one; best post sensibly where you see fit, and for us all to accept that views of what is the best place will reasonably vary between different members.  Where something is very clearly out of place, I or other moderators can / could / do split, join, move, re-arramge things and on occasion that comes not from a thread's origin but rather how I has changed or digressed over time.  I am not minded to  make changes here / on this thread tonight (posting from far, far away from the Thames Valley) but if others on the moderator team think it would be a good idea (and brave it would be indeed to re-arrange this thread!) I'll go along with it.

Tornio Station and parts of the walk look bleak even on Streetview ... yesterday was covered in ice, snow and slush which tends to block the drains an leave standing water on the low parts of the paths.

Continuing my adventures around the Baltic (and I may need to retitle this thread)

I am travelling by InterRAIL and so rail it is where possible. England to France, Luxembourg, Germany and Poland are "well known" and straightforward, and a previous post covered my travels up from Poland by train and then ferry up the east side of the Baltic to Finland. Two nights in Finland and I am now going around the top of the gulf of Bothnia.

* Finland to Sweden

Standard advice is to get the train to Kemi and then the bus to Tornio (about half an hour), walk across the international bridge, and get the onward bus to Lulea and then to Umea.  But this is a rail journey, and there is a daily train (or rather a single overnight train) from Helsinki to Kolari in Lapland which makes the only call of the day at Tornio East.  And so, overnight in Kemi and down to the station early in the morning for the 07:56.  Station almost deserted but waiting room open, warm, welcoming.

What a magnificent train! Two sturdy looking diesel locomotives, four or five sleeper carriages in sleeper dark blue, a restaurant car, and then a double deck day carriage and a whole string more sleeper carriages.  Behind them, car carrying carriages and closed carriages that I suspect conveyed yet more cars.

It's just shy of 1000 kms from Helsinki to Kolari and I joined this train for a short hop of about 20kms. "Reservations needed" it said on my planner, but try as I might I could not find how to get them - I could find the 200 Euro sleeper compartments but felt that was a bit over the top, so I joined the train at the single "day" carriage, reading literally the sign that said "you must buy a ticket before you board" as a tick - yes, I have an interrail pass. Just no reservation.  Turns out I need not have worried - there were a sprinkling of other passengers in the carriage, clearly bedded down, and one other passenger joined the train at Kemi.

As even on trains in these parts, ticket inspector came through. Had a look at my Interrail pass. Scrolled up to check I had turned this journey on. Pleasant smile and "thank you" and no question about lack of a reservation. I don't know the technicalities, but the local fare would have been just 3.80 Euros and I suspect that even if there was an issue it was not worth bothering with.

And to to Tornio. It's a station that over a decade ago I compared in my train campaign blog to our local station at Melksham, without even seeing the place or pictures of it.  "The only place in Europe that doesn't have any trains calling in daylight in the winter".  Yeah - it's just about on the Arctic circle in Tornio, with an 08:21 northbound and a 22:16 southbound. 

Turns out that other things are similar too. Tornio's station is a single bleak platform with similarity to Melksham as it was very few facilities.  Melksham used to have just a bus shelter and a notice board; Tornio doesn't even have a waiting shelter, but there is a notice board.  Unlike most stations across Europe, there is no timetable displayed with a "look it up online" notice, and there's no electronic display.  There is a small parking area and the handful of people who got off the train are being picked up.  And - another similarity to Melksham - it's situated in the back of an industrial estate, far from looking welcome and not at all obvious.  I wonder how many people who live in Tornio don't even know they have an "operating" train station.

A difference though - the platform at Tornio is long - long enough for that whole train.  As the train prepared to carry on, the train manager shoo-ed the smokers who had got off for a fag back on, and I was left on my own as the train pulled out and its tail disappeared into the distance as it turned right to run up the Tornio river away from the line that runs down to the place where passengers used to change from the 1524 mm gauge train of Finland to the 1485 mm gauge line in Sweden on the other side of the river.  But that's no longer running, and I set out to walk into Tornio

[intermission - the above is being written while I wait in Tornio ..]

Tornio town itself is situated on an island in the river, and the border between Finland and Sweden wriggles around in the river. It's a walk of a couple of miles, I suppose, from the station to the town.  The roads have been ploughed clear of snow, the cycle way and footpath reasonably cleared but melting slush blocks the drainage in places and it's definitely a "walk with care" place. The mapping app on my phone has been a great help, and ensures that I navigate down to the river bank and the path along there, then walk beside the frozen rivet to one of the grand bridges.  A few other are walking, and some are cycling.

The town is clearly a visitor destination - hotels, bars, riverside - but closed and deserted on this cool (but not all THAT cold) April morning.  Gaining experience, I'm aware that behind some of those uninviting exteriors will be warmth, and somewhere to sit and get a cup of coffee.  I have chosen the modern shopping centre, which as open for a coffee when I arrived and I am here still a couple of hours later.  It's clearly where the old met of the town meet their pals in the morning - they are gathered and gone, and indeed I am about to move on.

I'll be walking over to the Swedish shore - to the town of Haparanda - from where there is a copious service of three trains a day onwards. Two of these leave early in the morning long before I got here, so I'm headed for the 14:28.  Plenty of time - it's only 11:50 as I write, or is that 10:50 as I'm about to step back in time by an hour.  I'll follow up with this text to complete the sort once I'm in my next country, time zone and currency.  I am running out of pockets to keep coinage apart ...

Back to write more later!

Greetings from Sweden 12:40 Swedish time.  On foot and paths, with snow covering at this time of year, the border itself was not obvious.  The bus station flying flags of both countries was.  Amazing to think that just four years ago this border in the remote north was shut as a measure to stop the spread of Covid with, I understand, significant impact of the people who regularly cross.  It's fully open again now, as if nothing had happened - indeed the whole covid issue seems to have gone away; all I've seen have been some perspex screens at hotels to sop arriving guests sharing any distant caught infections with reception staff.

I walked from the bus station, past Ikea (I must be in Sweden!), in one section diverting to the side of the road to avoid a subway flooded with slush.  I did not stop in the centre of Haparanda, though I suspect one building was a cafe, because I wanted to be sure that I found the station, and that the timetables and application I had been working to were actually reflected in real life.  Buses and trains up here run only on certain days of the week and some services are "school days only" - so worth checking.  Partly gambling on there being somewhere warm and dry to wait at the station, but also with a fallback of being able to backtrack a kilometre or two into the centre.

What an astonishing surprise!  Haparanda Station is the most astonishing building and the railway here has a history that deserves a complete article. Perhaps I should not have been surprised, for this is a strategic crossing point for people going between the East and the West, and between different sides and neutral zones too in times of war.  The buildings are magnificent to reflect the aspirations of the people who build them, and in recent years have been rescued and restored;  there is still work to do, perhaps, and the place has latent possibilities as it awaits visitors.  A refurbished cafe complete with a hot food display looks like it has never been used. And large interpretation boards - in Swedish Finish, and of course English tell the story.

Part of the story is that the rail service from here (the first station over the border from Finland) was only restored on 1st April 2021 - together with an intermediate station - so it would seem that this journey I am making today is something that wouldn't have been possible a handful of years ago.  My friend Heli in Oulu was telling me that they are looking to electrify the line on their side. I'm not so sure it's "build it and they will come" but the twin border town are quite respectable in size and I can see it happening.

And I'm now on the train - electric, fast, very modern, and so quiet (passenger number wise) that I would be worried about its economic case in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom). The station buffet was - see above - a museum piece.  How pleasant to have a buffet on the train here; ticket checks and coffee service by the same gentleman and he and I ended up having quite a chat; if I'm posting this to the "interrail" thread ans group that would be off topic.

And so ... into Lulea for the night - so that's Kemi to Lulea.  A very rarely used international train connection it seems, yet one that I would thoroughly recommend to a certain ... genre ... of adventurous people.

An ongoing writeup of my travels - with especial concentration on travelling up through the Baltic countries which is something I had wondered about for years.  Written yesterday, smell checked overnight!

I disliked history at school and gave it up as soon as I could, but over the last week I have seen how the history of the last hundred years has shaped these land and been very unkind to them in a way we do not see in Wiltshire of perhaps most of England.  These are all lands that were occupied by Germany during the second world war, and were then parts of the Eastern Block - Russian satellites of indeed politically parts of the USSR thereafter.  And the destruction and the atrocities of those years are perhaps beyond description, yet are documented in art piece memorials with text in the native language and often in English too.

The history and the dislike of war and persecution remain to this day - and that's a dislike of current Russian activities; in spite of many domed and turreted orthodox churches in Russian Style, the flag of Ukraine is flown in so many places that it leaves you in no doubt where the support lies. On the border of Latvia and Estonia, there are six flagpoles and I'm sure they normally fly three Estonian flags and three Latvian ones.  Except at present the two poles closest to the border fly the yellow and blue of Ukraine.  This town of Valka / Valga has the border running through it, and the stream that forms the division has a number of bridges crossing it across which people freely walk.  One of the bridges has a swing on it and you can swing back and forth between the countries.  Photograph to be attached of a couple and their two children on the swing; I thought they spoke good English and it turned out that they should - for they were from Tunbridge Wells.

We complain about potholes in England - we ain't seen nothing!  We would grumble if the tread of a step were to be damaged (trip hazard) but here the infrastructure is worn and you pick your way around it.  The Baltic states, especially, gave the impression of falling apart with some bright flashes where something new has been built, either from scratch of within the shell of a building that has you wondering how it will be in a decade or so.

--------------

This is supposed (my supposition) to be a railway learning adventure and I will admit to being nervous of the advise for the Baltic states that said "use the bus", further concerned at my Interrail planner failing to even offer me the train for one of the legs, and my map book showing one of the stations I needed to change at as being closed, with lines marked "limited service - not daily" and "only served overnight by the sleeper service to Minsk". But I need not have worried.

* Poland to Lithuania

The 07:46 from Warsaw Central to Mockava, just across the border in Latvia, now runs daily.  An electric locomotive pulls 5 coaches (with numbers 11 to 15 to make you think it'a a longer train) to Bialystok close to the border with Belarus  (passenger trains don't carry on to there any longer), where it is replaced by a diesel locomotive than hauls us on over a single track to Suwalki.  We pause there again for 25 minutes while the locomotive runs round the train before it carries on up the single line though the forest to cross the border into Lithuania, sneaking though the gap bewteen the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Russia itself. and so we come into Mockava Station - very much open in spite of what my planner says.  And there it terminates.

The tracks look similar but look carefully and you may spot a slight difference - we have arrived on a train on a 1485mm gauge line, but the line the other side of the low platform is 1520mm and so our train would not fit. By this time, there are just a few dozen people on the train and all travelling with luggage.  They all chamber down the steps and stand around on a pleasant April day in the sunshire.

The schedule says we spend an hour and fifty minutes near the border, but in practise there's an hour change of the clocks, and so it's nothing like that amount of time.  A very modern 3 carriage multiple unit train pulls in, disgorges it passengers and they climb up onto the one we arrived on from Warsaw while we who arrived from Warsaw  get on the newly arrived train from Vilnius to return there.

A quiet train from Mockava, but again filled up at the major intermediate station on the way and we arrived in Vilnius at about half past 5.

* Lithuania to Latvia

And at Vilnius - capital of Lithuania - a problem.  The daily train onwards to Riga, capital of Latvia has only recently been re-introduced and it seems that it's very popular. All seats for the following day - Saturday - had been reserved (an reservation with an Interrail pass often can't be done online).  The lady on the ticket day suggested I take a bus as there was "no other train" - good stuff, this integrated travel) but instead I opted to drop back a day, travelling half way across Lithuania the next day, and then on to Riga the day after.  The 13:19 from Vilnius was stated in my timetable as running daily to Kliepedia on the coast, but it turns out there's a very complex list of days it goes all the way and days it stops short at Siauliai - thank goodness that's as far as I was going; two nights there then (and having to move hotels between!) and a really interesting town to see.

Apparently, it was the first town in the Soviet Union to pedestrianise its main street in (?) 1975 and that was such a success that it was extended a decade later.  These days, a significant proportion of the shop fronts are out of use, and many of the remaining ones are bars and restaurants.  The first evening I wasn't inclined to eat out, but the second evening I visited the Irish Bar and had a traditional (not sure who's tradition) lamb shank with pickled carrots, roast potato wedges, coleslaw and horseradish sauce, washed down with (several) pints of the local dark beer.

Siauliai was visited by Pole John Paul II and is clearly a city with a deep catholic tradition.  It is - or perhaps was - a major destination for visitors; one of my hosts tells me that business dropped with Covid as the visitors from Taiwan and Japan stopped coming, but I rather suspect he's moved from a market in which accommodation was in short supply and people would take anything to a market in which there is more accommodation than needed, and he's one of the ones missing out.  I am NOT going to write him a rubbish review (that is reserved for Radisson Blu in Gdansk) but I won't be taking my wife to stay in that apartment. Nice host, interesting product.

And so, Sunday, my train across the border. Nothing really eventful to report - it's a modern 3 car diesel thing run by Lithuanian Railways who start it from Vilnius before 7 in the morning - I picked it up at a more manageable 08:50 and it runs on to Riga where we pulled in to Platform 1 at 10:43.  So what about the next step to Estonia?

* Latvia to Estonia

OK - standard advise is "get the bus" but I am not standard.  My rail atlas shows one line connection the two countries but cautions "limited service from Valmiera to Valga.  My printed European Rai Timetable shows 2 trains a day, one from Riga at 11:10. My Interrail application says "no suitable service" when I try to add it to my pass.  And the Latvian Railway website confirms 2 trains a day, though the morning one is 11:00 and not 11:10.  It also tells me that it leaves from Platform 11, so I'm thinking a gallop across Riga station if I'm running late, and a lot of explaining to do to the tickets staff.

I need not have worried. It turns out that platforms 10 and 11 at Riga are the bay platforms just up from through platform 1, and the old 8 carriage local dies train in there is labelled as heading for Valga. I climb on - plenty of seats - and for the first time use the "manual train entry" on the Interrail App, noting its caution that you should check the pass really is valid if you do this.

Once we start, the ticket collector (all stations in these parts are open and tickets checked on trains) comes round, takes a look at my pass and then says that everyone on his train needs a (paper) ticket. He looks at my pass carefully, checking I have added the journey,  and then issues a ticket with 100% discount to I have nothing to pay.  Apologises for the need to faff around.

The train is a slow thing it accelerates from a walk to a canter for a few miles through wooded countryside the slows down for the next station. I was reminded of an article I once read about a train being so slow the passengers felt it must be the last reluctant trip of the driver before he retired.  Plenty of space in the train - 4 carriages would have been plenty rather than the eight, and the further on we got, the quieter it got.  Perhaps a dozen people got off at Valga at 13:58 - on time - a three hour journey from Riga and just into Estonia.  Almost exactly 100 miles - so it's the equivalent distance of Melksham to London.

The ongoing service to Tallinn runs 4 times a day - but none connects with this train from Riga - so I had from 2 O'clock until half past five to see Valga and its sister town Valka just back across the border in Latvia.   And so does the ticket collector, as on a Sunday his train sits there for most of the afternoon before returning to the Latvia.  As I walked down the street in a very quiet town, the ticket collector was walking that way too arm in arm with his girlfriend who was clearly out with him for the day.

I've written earlier about Valka and Valga as towns.  As a railway station it's magnificent. And it was the junction for where the line ran on to and beyond the Russian border.  No passenger trains now, but a rotting soviet steam engine on a plinth and an awful lot of tank wagons around; I suspect there is more trade than they would have us believe.

The train to Tallinn is a modern diesel unit, first class in the ends and standard in the middle.  My pass is first, but I get chucked out of my seat by someone who has it reserved, and the a helpful passenger informs me that all seats with little red sliders above them are reserved - that's the whole of first class. I suspect she was trying to help save me being moved multiple times, but it could just be that she wanted this scruff out of the posh end of the train.

We left Valga with a healthy passenger load but picked up more along the way until we were full and standing.  And the seats were the most uncomfortable I have been in for the whole trip so far.  I was squirming by the end of the three hour trip into Tallinn and delighted to have a half hour walk (mainly because my mapping application doesn't show the castle mound, so there was no direct route. I ended up taking the longer but undoubtedly more interesting one around.

Of note - about half the stations have short platforms "zone C if you want to leave the train" and that all appeared busy. And many of the platforms have been rebuilt at a low level, with a low level door on the trains for wheelchair access. Could do wonders ... new stations perhaps at Staverton and Lacock, and perhaps even Corsham and Wilton.

* Estonia to Finland

OK - so that was was a ship, from Terminal D (I walked there from the hotel). Modern fast ferry that runs about every 3 hours and takes 2 on the crossing, then a no. 7 tram into Helsinki

Electronics gone mad at the checkin - machine not people but it kept telling me to go to the counter.  Customer service rep at the machine was puzzled - looked OK on her system.  Mystery solved at the counter - I had claimed a 5 euro discount on the crossing (discount code Interrail) and they wanted to see my pass.

And so - onwards and northwards. Headed towards Lapland on a train now. Plenty of opportunity to write and I really don't want to get involved in council sh*t this afternoon - that can wait until morning.  Oulu where I have a hotel booked is the next stop; I will post with pics from the WiFi there, do council stuff early in the morning and then breakfast with a very old friend of Lisa's and mine from the early days we were courting via a newsgroup.

Edit to add - Images from the post

Four years ago today "Rail to Refuge" was launched - it has come up in our calendar.  Announced as a "during Covid" thing I wondered how it was getting on and just checked - still running and looks permanent at https://www.womensaid.org.uk/what-we-do/supporting-our-members/travel-to-refuge/ and with coach travel added

Correct - the 14:20 from Helsinki, terminating here at (due) 20:12.  Apology from the train manager in Finnish and English for the 7 minute delay.  Onward train to Rovaniemi waiting though I had already elected to stop in the larger town at the earlier hours, and left to find my hotel.   I think this was the longest delay on the trip so far; we were also a few minutes late into Koblenz - more of a worry because of a very tight change onwards to Limburg, but that connection was made with the Limburg train starting a couple of minutes late.

Subject says it all really

Track mileage, running mileage or passenger mileage? Could have some real fun with the stats.  Nine (I think) of the trains on my direct route were diesel, which leaves 13 electric, and one switched locos in the middle of the journey. One was a rail replacement, diesel, bus.

So I have reached the end of the line - from Melksham to Tallinn through 8 countires, by rail with a single ferry and a single rail replacement bus. 33 trains have been used on my Interrail pass covering the vast majority of the mileage; some services run as frequently as every 15 minutes, others as infrequent as once a day. I have also travelled on 21 other pieces of rail transport, ranging from the 4 trains in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) (which are not covered on my pass because I live in the UK) to trams in various cities, the Metro in Paris and detours on heritage steam railways.

I have stayed in some lovely hotels and a couple of places I would describe more as "interesting" than lovely. I have eaten some fabulous local food, and some food which hasn't made in away from its native setting and for obvious reason. The majority of people passed along the way are just that - passed. Service staff are typically polite, almost inevitably speak some English, and help where they need to. Just occasionally there's the odd one who shows clearly that (s)he would far rather not be troubled by customers, or in one notable case felt it was in his company's interest to hike the room price once I was there as a captive customer.

From the valleys of the Mosel to the flat lands of northern Germany. From the peninsular of Hel in Poland to the endless forests of the Baltic counties. From the pallava of passport and security checks and stamps between England and France to the many invisible borders - the extreme being the swing on the bridge that lets you rock back and forth between two countries.

I cannot go further by rail - the next natural step would have been via Minsk and St Petersburg, but political reasons forbid that, and I'm now on the ferry to Helsinki, from where I'll make another circuit to come home. I'm planning a day or two ahead, no more. So you'll need to watch my feeds as I carry on.

Would I recommend this to others? As a learning experience, yes but as a comfortable and relaxing holiday, probably not. Public transport requires a certain fitness to use it (I have pointed that out before) and at times can be stressful. Local systems are designed for regular users and it can be challenging to find out how things work. Tools like Google Translate are a huge help.

Lasting things to note? City after city with memories of the second world war - destruction of the cities and whole sections of the population. Soviet (Cold War) era abuses too and those memories die hard; the Ukrainian flag flies symbolically alongside nations flags all across the countries I have been in. And also the crumbling nature of so much infrastructure from time when these countries were part of the Eastern block. Build in great quantity but utilitarian some 70 years ago, but with a shelf life of 50 years, it is showing.

Just as in England, technology and Covid have decimated so many town centres and their businesses. In fact looking around, I have been reminded just how lucky we are in Melksham.  Which is not to say that I will press for a loop like at Bad Doberan, connections to onward road transport and at the same price as in Luxembourg, staffed station booking offices like in Siauliai and food at the station such as Warsaw.  Frequency such as trains to Warnemunde and visitors as welcome as they are in Binz.  And electric trains of which I have seen so many examples.  With one exception, I think the older diesel trains I used were the one from Melksham and the connection onwards at Westbury.

I have sent my apologise because I will probably still be travelling.  In the unlikely event of my returning early it would be one not to miss!

A fantastic summary, thank you.  You are spot on by saying it widens the view of what could be done - and what should not be done - in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) too, not only in railway terms but more generally.  There are times it makes you realise how lucky we are (the last few days have made we realise that) and at times how behind the times we are.  And there are time, yes, when the local systems known well to people who live in these countries are daunting / worrisome to the outsider.  I look forward to reading your further feedback.

c) A different bar code for each day

That used to be something of a special case as it was a VERY long way round except by the train - someone told me 20 miles. I think it still is by road, but you can now walk across the rail bridge?   Can someone confirm that?