EUROPE: Lithuania’s LTG Cargo has operated a pilot freight train through Latvia to Valga, the first station in Estonia.
On February 23 CEO Eglė Šimė said LTG Cargo plans to start offering ‘competitive green logistics services’ in the three countries in the near future, as a step towards launching future freight services on the Rail Baltica line.
The train was organised in-house by LTG Cargo using its own certification. A single Siemens Mobility locomotive was used throughout to avoid the need to swap locos at the borders.
Organising the service took a year. LTG Cargo said ‘the certification process in foreign countries is notable for its complexity and difficulty’, and involved the preparation of 400 documents with 300 annexes to prove that the operator was ready to use the infrastructure and that it met safety and legal obligations.
