Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, Railways, Transport, Ukraine

"I spoke with representatives of the railway companies of Ukraine and Belarus alike, all had read about it in the newspaper but didn't know any details," Estonian Railways CEO Erik Laidvee told LETA/BNS from Sochi, where he is attending an international railway forum titled "Strategic Partnership 1,520."

"Rather, they all shook their head and said that you can try this once and see if starts looking good," the newly appointed CEO of the Estonian railway infrastructure company said. "Apparently it was a vision of that gentleman [Omelyan] that we could have something like this, but nobody has dealt with it yet."

"Generally speaking, it would be a good thing; the more trains like this we have, the better, but speed remains a problem as long as we speak about passenger traffic," Laidvee added.

Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan earlier this week announced what he described as "The Train of Five Capitals" project, which is aimed at connecting five capitals of Europe -- Kiev, Minsk, Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn -- by rail. In addition, a possible extension to Odessa is mulled to extend the route to the entire length between the Baltic and the Black seas. Along the entire length of the route the track gauge is 1,524 mm, which means that no change of train wheels is required.