07.11.2025
Train journeys across Europe could become half as long as they are now in the coming years. A plan was launched in Brussels this week that aims to make travelling by train in Europe as fast and convenient as flying – and this directly affects Estonia.
The European Union is planning the biggest investment in rail in decades, with an estimated €550 billion earmarked for the development of connections. The aim is to connect Europe's major cities with significantly faster train lines and make travel between continental countries smoother than ever before.
Rail Baltica, which will eventually connect Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with the rest of the European rail network by high-speed rail, is also a key part of this great wave of innovation. The new connections will not only mean more convenient travel – they will also create the conditions for new jobs, residential areas and business growth in the cities and municipalities along the railway.
Faster rail will also help achieve Europe's goal of reducing road and air travel and moving step by step towards carbon-neutral transport. When trains offer the same speed and comfort as flights, the choice becomes easier for people.
Trains on Rail Baltica will start running in just five years, in 2030, and then the current all-day train journeys will be replaced by completely different travel times.
For example, the train ride between Tallinn and Pärnu will take 40 minutes, and from Tallinn to Warsaw it will take less than 7 hours.
Quickly to Europe through Poland
The development of Poland's railway network will also receive a significant boost. The European Union is allocating 450 million euros to Poland to upgrade the country's railways and port infrastructure. Most of the money will go to modernizing the Polish part of the Rail Baltica route and installing a new, safer train traffic management system. The Polish national railway operator PKP PLK will receive nearly 390 million euros from these investments. In addition, funds will be directed to planning a new railway section between Katowice and the Czech border. According to Poland, these investments will make the country's transport corridor faster, safer and more competitive - which is also important for the future of the train connection between Estonia and Central Europe.
High-speed rail development is not limited to the Baltics and Poland
Europe's goal is to connect its largest cities with high-speed train lines so that long journeys can now be made as reasonable day trips. For example, it is planned that by 2030 it will be possible to travel by train from Berlin to Copenhagen in about four hours, which is almost half the time it takes today. By 2035, the goal is to travel from Sofia to Athens in about six hours. In addition, new cross-border lines are being developed to connect the west and south of Europe - among other things, the Paris-Madrid-Lisbon high-speed rail line is in the works to make travel there much faster and smoother.
In addition to developing infrastructure, the operation of train traffic must also be improved: in 2026, EU rules will be updated to simplify the cross-border certification of train drivers, and a unified ERTMS traffic management system will be implemented, making the European rail network more compatible.
The article was first published on November 6, 2025 as a content marketing story in Õhtuleht.
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