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Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

(yle.fi)
461 points axelfontaine | 6 comments | 20 May 25 07:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.498s | source | bottom
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vesinisa ◴[20 May 25 08:26 UTC] No.44039149[source]▶
Here's a much better article from the Finnish public broadcaster giving more context: https://yle.fi/a/74-20161606

My comments:

The important thing to note that at this point it's just a political posturing and an announcement of intent. They haven't shown any concrete technical plan how this would actually be executed.

> "Of course, we are very pragmatic and realistic, we cannot do this in five years. Planning will continue until the end of the decade, and maybe in 2032 we can start construction."

Once they have the cost estimates and effects on existing rail traffic studied, I bet construction will never start.

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cladopa ◴[20 May 25 09:34 UTC] No.44039611[source]▶
>Once they have the cost estimates and effects on existing rail traffic studied, I bet construction will never start.

It is not that hard. Countries like Spain have already two different gauges and have the necessary technology in the trains to change between different systems.

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varsketiz ◴[20 May 25 09:50 UTC] No.44039699[source]▶
One of the main goals of this is to not have the russian gauge available in case russians attack, so that logistics deeper into Finland cant happen easily with the same train, so backwards compatability is not desired.
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potato3732842 ◴[20 May 25 10:02 UTC] No.44039773[source]▶
It's not like this results in a categorical difference in difficulty. Gauge switching infrastructure is common at borders. Yeah stopping and switching is slower than driving right through but it's not the end of the world in the long tail of military logistics.
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1. phkahler ◴[20 May 25 13:47 UTC] No.44041645[source]▶
And if you're Russia wanting to invade Europe, it's better to do the Gauge switching right near your own border rather than on the far side of Finland. So while this may make it harder to invade Finland, it makes it easier to invade Europe as a whole.
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2. dcow ◴[20 May 25 13:57 UTC] No.44041783[source]▶
This. I am struggling to see how this is anything other than posturing by politicians. It’s hard to imagine this is strategy devised by military leaders.
3. gbear605 ◴[20 May 25 14:11 UTC] No.44041903[source]▶
The far side of Finland? That’s the Baltic Sea. Sure, there’s a little bit of Sweden, but it’s so far north that there isn’t much rail infrastructure there - certainly little enough that it could quickly be destroyed at the beginning of a war.
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4. Cthulhu_ ◴[20 May 25 14:21 UTC] No.44041987[source]▶
The objective they try to achieve is not to slow down Russia's invasion into Europe, but to stop them at the border by being able to move assets throughout Europe relatively quickly. If they gain a proper foothold and full access to "euro gauge" rails, it's a different fight.

Of course, if it does go that far, tanks and trains can move rolling stock, rip up the tracks, blow up bridges and other infrastructure behind them if they're forced to retreat.

5. andreasmetsala ◴[20 May 25 18:19 UTC] No.44044357[source]▶
If the supply line is blown up at the beginning of the war then what was the point of switching gauges.
6. dmurray ◴[20 May 25 19:00 UTC] No.44044740[source]▶
The stated reason for the gauge change is "to remove technical obstacles to transporting troops and goods between Finland, Sweden and Norway".

Those few connections in the sparse north of the country are the entire point.