VR Group (Finnish Railways) provides rail transport, supplementary road transport services, track construction and maintenance services. The Group also includes companies providing catering and restaurant services and telecommunications services. VR Group’s main market area is Finland, but a significant proportion of freight service haulage is international traffic.
VR Group Ltd, the Group’s parent company, is owned entirely by the Finnish state. It was incorporated in 1995 to continue the operations of Finnish State Railways (VR), which was established in 1862.
The annual volume of Finnish-Russian rail traffic is currently around 14-16 million tons of goods delivered via four border crossings. About 24 freight trains daily cross the border. The main cargo flows are obviously exports and imports, but Finland is also used as a transit corridor for Russia’s foreign trade deliveries from third countries. The Finnish route continues to be favoured for reasons of quality, accuracy and stable price level.
There are two daily passenger train connections between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, as well as a night train between Moscow and Helsinki. The volume of passengers has risen about 20 % a year in the 2000s. A high-speed rail connection between Helsinki and St. Petersburg will start in 2010.
All activities are carried out in close partnership with OAO RZD (Russian railways) and tight cooperation with wagon operators and forwarding companies.