Catching a train to the RUSSIAN BORDER in 2023... (Is it safe!?) 

What funny names for stations have you seen? 💬👇

The inner-child in me smirked so hard when I saw Püssi come up on screen 🤣

The USA needs more trains like these. The last photo of the train framed by falling snow is magical.

The power pack being separate from the trains ensures good passenger comfort with less vibrations and noise reaching the passengers. I gotta say it's my favourite feature about these trains.

I took a sleeper train from Talinn to St. Petersburg 20 years ago. We were woken up in the middle of the night for passport and customs checks. Us foreigners were asked to say some of the bags were ours, so the customs people didn't check what was being smuggled.

The speeds on the line have been increased since your visit. Between Tapa and Narva the maximum speed on large parts of the route has been raised ot 135 km/h. Tallinn-Tapa-Tartu route will be electrified by 2025 and Tapa-Narva by 2027. New trains will also be introduced made by Škoda, specifially designed for express services and will provide extra comfort as well as vending machines. When the new trains were introduced in 2013 and 2014 the dwingling numbers of rail passengers skyrocketed and are now twice as high as they were before the arrival of the new trains. By the way, I must say your pronounciation of the local names was very good!

I really love the design of the canopies and the lamp posts. Really something unique and beautiful. Classic scandinavian design. What an interresting video.

You 100% need to travel in standard (not premium) Russian sleeper train. Best way - from Saint Petersburg to Moscow on a double decker train. It coust only about 25$, but very comfortable. Premium variant cost about 50$ Luxury - 500$ for 2 person, you room have private shower!

I took this train to Tartu and Valka while doing a border run from Russia. Really lovely. Narva was lovely as well!

May I say as a recent subscriber to your channel that I love your voice with its clear and accurate enunciation as well as the warm cadences. Your obvious interest in, and communication of, geography, landscapes, scenery, history, art and architecture is charming, informing and absorbing without in any way detracting from the central topic...the train. Keep up the good work while i do my best to catch up! 🥰

So weird to see a Russian TEP70 right beside an American diesel locomotive... worlds collide! Very cool video, I really enjoy the minor graphics for station names and line diagrams.

You also passed "Lilleküla" station on the way between Balti Jaam and Kitseküla. It literally means "flower village", although the surroundings of the railway station mostly consist of a big parking lot of a shopping center. Once I was on a bus driving through Lilleküla and some childrens were upset about the fact that they didn't see any flowers. By the way, to save some money in the project to literally renovate every single meter of the country's rail network, some rural station were only rebuilt with a very short platform. At these platforms, it's always the door next to the wheelchair & bike area which opens.

Fabulous video. Very informative and thoroughly enjoyable to watch.

Awesome trip idea! Thanks for sharing :)

Kudos for the (handcrafted?) subtitles, they match your production quality perfectly👏🏻

Hi, very nice and informative video :D! Btw, I have a recommendation for where you should travel next! I think you should travel to Bergen in Norway from Oslo. There are very beautiful views with many hills, water and trees. I would recommend traveling to Bergen while it’s bright outside so that you can enjoy the views, and I think there is WiFi on board as well with a restaurant (it was on the train I took). Anyways, Great video :)

Excellent report! 👍

Interestig video. I have never seen this part of the world before. Thanks for sharing.

Very good videos you make thank you enjoyed

Ammmmmazing trip report! Loved it :)

Thank you for this Video... It was a little throwback to my own trip with ELRON to Narva last summer! I found the trains clean and pleasant. Better than here in Germany. It's a pity that the old trains were no longer in service, I would have liked to try them too.

Remember taking one of these trains to Tartu in 2015. Great trains and very modern

I am delightfully surprised by the seeming quality of these Estonian trains and infrastructure.. I never really seen any of Estonia’s train world before, but with it being another ex soviet country my expectations were quite low. It’s nice to see good investment in the railroads, which can help a lot. Nice video

I laughed at your little comment about Pussi. Interesting video as well.

Great video as always👌maybe you could try the Thalys next time? Would be pretty interesting I think. Anyway keep up the good work💪

I love ELRON 🥰 I traveled on my vacation in Estonia with it and the next time with my journey to Russia. I always enjoyed it 👍🏻

Great video 📸

Those ex-Union Pacific locomotives in Estonia are the General Electric C36-7 design. As for these Stadler Flirts, the power pack set-up reminds me of their UK counterparts (Classes 231 and 755, of course).

Makes me proud to see native brands at our Baltic friends. Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪❤️🇪🇪

That rai-car was really something else indeed 🤭

This is a fun day trip. Did it last month while visiting Tallinn. That BK is pretty good too as it's one of few places with free drink refills.

Thanks for the showcase! The train network here in Estonia isn't very large, but I must say it's pretty modern with step-free access and the trains. And yes, we used to have a straight train connection from Tallinn to Russia, but it was closed when the pandemic happened

Very informative video. What did you do once you got to Narva? You should definitely make videos about the destinations (and their stations!) as you're a very engaging presenter :)

I stayed in that hotel in April 2022. Nice it is too…

Interesting video. I had no idea the Estonian freight locomotives were in fact second hand American ones. And the train service looks really good. Surprisingly comparable in terms of the train to whats seen on provincial regional services in Denmark by the likes of Arriva and Nordjyske Jernbaner, who have similar trains with similar comfort levels on similarly long journeys. Though some of the Danish trains, especially Arriva in central Jutland, are much more expensive than Elron on routes like Aarhus to Skjern (I mean 215kr c'mon). Nordjyskes main corridor from Aalborg to Skagen is however very similar in both comfort, price, speed, and travel time to Elrons service (like 100kr thats more like it).

i took the train to Chop (UA) from Cierna nad Tisou (SK) a week ago and its pretty safe if you ask me, i got arrested when exiting the train and carried to an interrogation room because of accidentally filming military/police personell so i dont reccomend recording everything. but for the rest visiting Ukraine was lovely and im visiting this 25th of february again

Stadler Trains are always amazing

That train is looking good

Stadler FLIRT, amazing!

There is no difference at all between first and second class. First class seats are reserved which one can consider when trains are crowded. Those trains run for 10 years already and still look like new. No graffiti and nothing broken. AC works, no excessive oil burning in engines, everything is good.

Actually, Indonesia railways needs a diesel unit like FLiRT, doesn't it? considering that Stadler also established a joint venture with INKA in Banyuwangi

Hi, nice video, I'm going to Narva next friday and I was planning to do it by train. Did you buy the ticket at the station? How much for the return in second class? Thank you.

Latvia still uses old soviet trains but they will soon be replaced by the Škoda 16ev

The snow you were driving through wasn't a blizzard it was just the light snow flying around because of the wind that train creates with it's high speed and the snow on and near the rails.

5:58 Lähdevesi spotted 👀

I took a train from that station to St. Petersburg in the summer of 2016. The border crossing was very time consuming BTW. Taking the bus into or from Russia is quicker through passport control.

Just to correct you, those new trains actually replaced RVR DR1B/A trains, the one you showed, i personally had never seen before.

This does me thinking at the "GTW" driving on regional lines in The Netherlands.

I took this train today. The same oil train was there, minus the locomotive

How many takes did you have to do for the Pussi joke until you could say it with a straight face? lol. Nice video. Impressive that they're step-free already, although probably easier when you only have 8 lines in your entire country. Stadler steadily taking over the world I see!

Great trip. Nice train by the way, and the town at 9:33 is very unique. I think only in Estonia where US Locomotive can meet with Russian Locomotive. Bit curious about the progress of Rail Baltica project, how about the progress?

10:56 - quite interesting vehicle!

the 1524mm gauge railway in Finland is still the Russian gauge, Estonia uses the same gauge too along with the 1520mm one

Great report. Any plans to do something similar in Latvia and Lithuania?

I'm from Russia. I'm looking forward to the normalization of relations between Russia, Finland and the Baltic states, so that all routes (from Moscow and Saint Petersburg) become active again. Btw, the train is very similar to the Russian "Swallow"

Love it how you spell that Rrrrr 😊 Greetings from Estonia

The title feels a bit clickbait-y lol

Enoyed the video and agree that Elron is a very pleasant way to travel. Püssi btw is a derivative of the Estonian word for gun or rifle. I wonder if you saw the sign at Balti Jaam for "Rong Info"....rong being the word for train...but still funny all the same.

I would love to go to Estonia. I reckon it’s a perfect place to film the next 007 movie in too

You should try the Avala rain from Belgrade to… Well, there are a lot of destinations

Just to make you aware. I Want A IR4 Video from Esbjerg Or Sønderborg To Copenhagen

I always love the wifi password locomotive 😂😂😂

damnn these trains look sick

1:20 shame that this old station building was demolished by soviets

is there a good connection from Tallinn to Riga as well?

12:12 that fence on the platform, is that for a former passport control? internartional platform. and the headine asked if it is safe, but was it safe?

"Püssi, Where I'd really like to spend more time" LMAO HAHAHAH

As an Estonian, some of the pronunciations were pretty funny but otherwise pretty close to how we say them. Great video!

Love those old elevated signal boxes...I assume they're signal boxes?

9:31 I did not saw that one comming.💀

Excellent video, and if you are wondering what it's the British version of the train is, they are class 755 Greater Anglia GEML routes Wales Class 231. The American locomotives you see are GE C36-7 or C30-7s with US signals replaced by former Soviet Union ASLN Klub-U. Regarding the Russian 2TE116 locomotive, it's also operated in Ukraine with them using KFA Wagons to carry Challenger 2 tanks to the Eastern Region from Poland and Slovakia. 2TE116 is also related to the German Deutsche Bahn Baureihe 232 Deutsche Reichsbahn Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (German Democratic Republic) Baureihe 132 TE109 2TE109 due to them being made in the same Ukrainian factory.

Жил года 4 назад в отеле Go Shnelli, что одной стеной выходит на вокзал, так под окнами как раз стояли эти морковные поезда до Нарвы (а они на тепловозной тяге) и всю ночь и тарахтели дизелями. А в Кейлу ходят такие-же морковные Штадлеры, только электрические.

Kinda funny to see those trains operating on such long and "express"-called lines. I know them as "Regio"-trains, which are the most boring and slowest trains here in Switzerland and are traveling small distances with stops at every village...

As much as i like the video, nice and informative. I do not like the title at all. Of course it's safe, why wouldn't it be? Just because we share a border with Russia, it doesn't mean it's dangerous. Ever since the war started, foreigners started asking that question... Even tho Berlin and Central Europe are closer to the actual fighting. -.-

The bottle of "Lähdevesi" (VR) is water from Finland (Valtion Rautatiet, Finnish National Railways).

1:52 as a German the ,,Reisibüroo" made my giggle

Even Estonia has a better Train system than Canada and USA😭😂

👍

hah Finnish VR train water bottle. nice thing to take to estonian train with you from Finland

Have you tried travelling on the new Siemens Desiro HC and Mireo already? They apperantly are now in use with GoAhead in the Augsburg area in Germany. I would love to see if the investment was worth it. Nice to see even the small village of Parila got a train station, although they are just 80 inhabitants big. It is probably also accessable to other villages around. On a German Wikipedia article the small village Straß has a "Train Station" with the small village Moos. Yes, it is written in quotation marks xD

When i was a kid i used to ride this line every winter going from Moscow to Tallin. Back then there were two daily trains between the two capitals, one was via St Petersburg and another one was direct. The second was much faster but it would cross the border at like 5 a.m. or smth which was very annoying. Estonia wasn't in EU and Schengen zone yet though, so the process of border inspection was quite quick. But you had to get up anyway. And those Moscow-Tallin trains were pretty crowded, consisting of up to 15 cars as i recall. Hell of a traffic. But as Russia and Estonia continued to drift apart from each other this traffic got weaker and weaker with years. Now i won't be surprised if i see bushes groing from underneath the tracks on Russia-Estonia border. Shame...

I'm not sure if I understood you right when you said that the train was driving with electrified way until Aegviidu, but if that's what you said then that's wrong. There are only two types of trains. 1. Only electrified meaning that they can't change to diesel motor. 2. Only diesel motor meaning that they can't change to electrified. Yes they drive with the same route as the electrified trains, but they can't use the electric lines above they just drive with diesel motors. They are planning to get škoda trains in second half of 2024 that can change from electric to diesel and diesel to electric meaning that when there's electrified route then it uses electric lines and when they end it continues with diesel motors. Also one of the main routes from Tallinn to Tartu and back right now is not electrfied but with new škoda trains they want the line to be fully electric.

I assume it must be wide guage in Estonia - am I correct?. Otherwise how do those Russian locomotives you showed, get across the border?

The border south of the country is a bit more exciting. Saatse boot will have you entering Russia without a visa. 😊

I love Elron!

So now you got Sweden, Denmark and Estonia. When Finland?

theres a station named ''Hell'' in norway

While the major cities of the world are slow to bring wheelchair-accessible transportation to the masses, Estonia already has level-boarding on all stations of its national railway system with the ever-ubiquitous Stadler trains. Accessible, affordable and convenient rail transport is always good for the customer. *SIDENOTE:* Ah "Pussi"... ha ha ha. Is it by chance that you've owned a cat? 🐈

Is it safe? Made me laugh😂

2TE116U is a locomotive model and 0157 is a serial number of locomotive built.

Your treating the Russian Federation like north Korea

11:24 will Go rail ever return ?

9:32 It would be interesting to go there and order Mustard there. (look up Estonian word for mustard).

9:30 Nice

Great journey, especially the Püssi part

LOL they have a circle K in Estonia. We have them here in gas stations in the US.

Probably the funniest town name I've ever seen was a German town called "Ägypten" which litreally translates to Egypt. So random 😂

Kudos for learning how to pronounce names correctly! 8.5/10. Btw Püssi means "gun's"

I from Estonia Hello-Tere

The service has kind of stagnated as the prices have gone up. Also not a fan of the bike ticket which they implemented recently. I still take it everytime I go to Tallinn though cause it's nice and comfy and quick.