EDzL is the Latvian part of the RB Rail joint venture involving the national rail companies of all three Baltic states.
The winter conditions willl bring a spend of 300,000 euros for Riga Central Station and 120,000 euros for Riga Airport. Diļevs said that EDzL has received authorization to allocate funding for the winterization of constructions.
"It's not conservation, but protecting structures in winter.I hope that the government will make the right decisions that the works at Riga Airport and Riga Central Station should be continued, but we cannot predict at what moment the European Union (EU) funding will be redistributed, therefore, knowing the risks in winter with the freezing of water, we treat the finished concrete structures with waterproofing and anti-corrosion solutions," said Diļevs.
Rail Baltica is planned to be a fully electrified, double-track railway with a standard European gauge of 1435 mm and a design speed of 249 km/h. Originally expected to cost 5.8 billion euros, estimated costs have more than trebled, while at the same time the specifications for the first stages of construction have been pared back in an effort to save costs.
The project has been particularly troubled in Latvia with a parliamentary commission probing overspends and missed deadlines. Construction work related to Rail Baltica is evident at several locations in and around Rīga, but final decisions on how precisely it will all be connected up and when remain to be taken.
One proposal currently under consideration is to build the link from Riga central to the Airport using the wider Russian-gauge tracks used on the rest of the domestic network as a cost saving measure.
As Latvian Radio and Latvian Television reported November 6, cost savings of 1.5 billion euros have been identified by this means as well as others, such as not building planned sound barriers – though this potentially means a much noiser environment for those living near the tracks.
For now, Latvia is the only one of the three Baltic states that has not yet started work on the Rail Baltica main line despite making signiicant progress on the two largest stations. However, this does not make Latvia a weak link in the chain, the RB Rail chief insists.
"There is no country from the Baltic states that does not have questions about the implementation of the project. For example, in Estonia, we see that the southern part is something that we should prioritize in order to get a functioning railway by 2030," said the acting director of RB Rail CEO Marko Kivila.
As for the construction of the basic track in Latvia, although the contract with the builders was concluded almost a year ago, actual construction work has not started. However, as explained by Diļevs, the works could start soon.
"In principle, winter is the best time to deliver building materials, because the entire surface of the ground for the roads is frozen. Accordingly, there is less impact on the existing road structure. In principle, these are works that we plan to carry out on a rather ambitious scale," said Diļevs.
