English
On May 13 to 14 in Jūrmala there was meeting of the Railway Transport Council (RTC), which is the most important umbrella organization in the 1520 mm gauge railway system.
The Council associates 17 member states from the former CIS, as well as Georgia, Bulgaria, Finland and the Baltic States, and its task is to ensure cooperation of railway administrations on the technical, economical, finance as well as legal issues. It ensures coordination of railway transport operations and development of integrated principles on an interstate level for future cooperation and transportation. Council meetings are held twice a year in one of the member states.
The meeting was held on the top level, with participation of the RTC Chairman and Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin, LDz Chairman of the Board Uģis Magonis, as well as the Minister of Transport Kaspars Gerhards. During the meeting bilateral agreements that are important for the Latvian and Russian railway cooperation were signed. Railway development cannot be regarded separately from the port operation therefore Chief Executive Officer of the Riga Freeport Leonīds Loginovs.
Taking the opportunity to show the Port of Riga to all top managers of the 1520 mm railway system at the same time, a visit to the port was organized and the attendants were introduced to the already finished projects, as well as projects in the stage of development. L. Loginovs mentioned: „The expressed positive words about the Latvian Railway and operation of the port allow us to think that Russian Railways will not develop only those routes that lead to the Russian ports, but also to Latvia. It is very important for us, because it proves the interests of Russia to increase cargo flow through Latvia.” The port must be ready to accept and handle more and more cargoes therefore the delegation evaluated the existing cargo handling infrastructure to ensure that flatcars, gondolas, freight cars/containers and refrigerator trains do not delay in the port, but their handling is fast and qualitative. At the moment the Port of Riga is capable of handling up to 900 freight cars daily that considerably exceeds the current load.
