HELSINKI, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Passenger train services between Finland and Sweden will resume in August after a break of nearly four decades, opening a new cross-border rail connection between the two countries, Finnish national railway company VR announced Thursday.
VR and the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom have signed an agreement on tendered passenger train services between Oulu in Finland and Haparanda, a border town in northeastern Sweden known in Finnish as Haaparanta, via the Finnish border town of Tornio. Daily operations will start on Aug. 10, with 28 services to be operated weekly.
There will be two daily services in each direction between Oulu and Haparanda every day of the week. The service will also mark the return of passenger trains to the center of Tornio for the first time in decades.
Cross-border passenger rail service between Finland and Sweden was discontinued in 1988 because it was considered unprofitable.
The new route is mainly state-funded tendered traffic aimed at improving rail connections in northern Finland.
"At Traficom, we are pleased that we were able to open this new route and thus improve the service level of train traffic. We look forward to seeing how interesting the new route is going to be to passengers," Pipsa Eklund, development director at Traficom, said in a press release.
VR said the launch of the route had required close cooperation between Finnish and Swedish authorities on customs and border-crossing practices, as well as technical details related to rail traffic.
Juho Hannukainen, VR's director of new traffic, said the new service would make travel between Finland and Sweden easier, including between the university towns of Oulu and Lulea in northern Sweden. Passengers will also be able to continue from Oulu to the Finnish capital Helsinki.
VR said transfer connections in Haparanda are planned to improve further in December, when trains operated by Swedish regional operator Norrtag will connect Haparanda with Lulea.
Tickets for the Oulu-Haparanda route will go on sale on June 30. Public celebrations will be held at railway stations along the route when the service starts on Aug. 10.
Passengers continuing their journey in Sweden need to change trains in Haparanda because Finland and Sweden use different rail gauges. Finland uses a 1,524-mm gauge, while Sweden uses the standard European gauge of 1,435 mm. ■