Riihimäki railway station is located in the town of Riihimäki

Riihimäki

Riihimäki is a town and municipality in the south of Finland, about north of Helsinki and southeast of Tampere. It is somewhat of a railway junction, since the railway tracks going from different parts of the nation to Helsinki merge there. Sako, Ltd...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

.

History

The Riihimäki railway station is one of the original stations on the main railway track from Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 to Hämeenlinna, opened in 1862. The town was originally built because of the railway. In 1870, a track to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, was built (see Riihimäki–Saint Petersburg Railway). The amount of traffic increased, and by the 20th century, Riihimäki became an important crossing-point station. In 1907, a narrow track to Loppi

Loppi

Loppi is a municipality in Finland. It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Tavastia Proper region. Loppi was founded in 1632. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is...

 was built, but it was discontinued in 1952. The track was electrified in 1972. By the late 20th century, the railroad traffic from Riihimäki south towards Helsinki started to become overloaded, so a more direct track to Lahti

Lahti

Lahti is a city and municipality in Finland.Lahti is the capital of the Päijänne Tavastia region. It is situated on a bay at the southern end of lake Vesijärvi about north-east of the capital Helsinki...

 was built. When it was completed, the long-distance rail traffic eastwards toward Russia switched to this new track. Now only local trains and cargo trains travel between Riihimäki and Lahti.

Train connections

Helsinki commuter rail:

• R & H trains (both sometimes continue to Lahti or to Tampere
  Tampere
  Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...
  
  )
• T trains (night traffic)

Long-distance rail:

• InterCity
  InterCity
  InterCity is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe...
  
   and InterCity² trains
• Night express trains to Lapland

External links