22.01.2026
Rail Baltic Estonia has announced a construction tender, which will result in the construction of the Rail Baltica rolling stock depot in Rae municipality, Harju County, by the end of 2028 – a strategic infrastructure facility that will concentrate all maintenance, repair and operation of the future high-speed railway rolling stock in Estonia. The maintenance and repair center being built in the Soodevahe area will also be the largest or main depot in the Baltics.
The procurement includes the preparation and construction of the detailed design of both the depot building and the service platforms inside the building. The deadline for submitting bids is 10 March 2026, and the contract with the contractor is planned to be signed at the end of April. The completion date for the depot construction work is 31 December 2028.
The estimated cost of the procurement amounts to 41,331,818 euros excluding VAT.
According to Lauri Ulm, Technical Director and Board Member of Rail Baltic Estonia, the rolling stock depot is of critical importance to the operation of Rail Baltica, both in terms of the system and jobs.
"The rolling stock depot being built in Rae rural municipality will allow for the simultaneous servicing of up to six high-speed trains or twelve regional trains and will consolidate all rolling stock maintenance and readiness into one unit. This means 150–200 permanent and highly qualified jobs and will create a solid foundation for the operational reliability of Rail Baltica for decades," said Ulm, who estimates that the depot will become one of the competence centers for railway rolling stock repair and maintenance work in the entire Baltics.
"The building is not only intended for train maintenance, but also brings together the infrastructure serving the entire rolling stock life cycle under one roof – from repairs and washing to office space."
The main volume of the planned depot is divided into two. The central part of the building is the rolling stock repair hall, where all maintenance and repair functions are located, and the second volume is a three-story administrative building.
The depot building is planned to have eight tracks, six of which are maintenance and service tracks with a useful length of 1380 meters. This allows for the simultaneous service of up to six high-speed trains (approximately 220 m) or up to 12 regional trains (approximately 110 m), as well as their combined formations according to operational needs. In addition, there is a separate train wash and a lathe track for profiling wheelsets.
Six more service lanes have been planned for the outdoor area for cleaning, equipping and parking trains, which will increase the simultaneous service capacity of the entire depot, which is the same size as the building itself.
The national passenger train operator Elron will be the first to use the rolling stock depot, being the user of the depot and related services under a lease agreement.
The joint bid submitted by OÜ Reaalprojekt and NORD PROJEKT AS won the design tender for the rolling stock depot in 2020. If the procurement procedure goes according to plan, construction of the rolling stock depot will begin at the end of 2026 and the building will be handed over to Rail Baltic Estonia by the end of 2028.
You can view the visuals of the rolling stock depot here: 3D visuals of the rolling stock depot | Flickr
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