This was a tourist trip combined with train action; I've been hoping to go to Ukraine for some years, but until that is a possibility that doesn't involve the risk of air raids, Latvia was the next best option.
Latvia currently has no loco-hauled passenger services; the services to Belarus and Russia have not run since 2020 for obvious reasons. The electric services are operated by Skoda Vagonka 16EVs; Russian gauge versions of the RegioPanter. The main thing of interest to an enthusiast is the DR1 DMUs, built in Rīga during Soviet times, they have been modernised post-independence and operate on the non-electrified lines.
The passenger operations of LDZ operate under the name "Vivi"; this is an abbreviation of the Latvian phrase "vienā vilcienā", meaning "on one train". I suspect it sounds better in Latvian.
Riga itself has no metro system - the local populace having successfully objected against a Soviet plan for one, not wanting any more Russians in their city. It has a tram network, which still uses a considerable number of Czechoslovak Tatras, typically operating in pairs. This, along with the trolleybus and regular buses network, is operated by Rīgas Satiksme.
I asked Vivi about photography before they went; they were OK with me taking pictures of the trains and general shots of stations, but not specific infrastructure shots. There was also signage at Rīgas Centrālā requiring coordination for any photographs and filming there. With Russia next door and a drone incursion in recent weeks, concern about the bear is high and air raid shelters are publically designated, as well as available on the Latvija 112 app. Military recruitment adverts are very common on the train... and I also saw adverts for the upcoming parliamentary elections on there, as well as in places you would not see them in the UK.
Speaking of apps, both the Vivi and Rīgas Satiksme apps only work with Baltic (i.e. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) mobile numbers. Vivi has no ticket machines that I saw at all and you will probably need Google Translate or similar at the ticket counters at Centrālā; no other ticket offices seemed to be open at all. The tickets are glorified receipts with QR codes
Rīgas Satiksme sell electronic card tickets that can be topped up, including at branches of the Narvesen newsagent chain. I bought a five-day unlimited travel pass for €10; however, this does not cover Vivi services, which have their own zonal tickets. You have to tap on when boarding; validators are present at all the doors.
Thursday 10 September
Got an early morning Uber to London Gatwick for Air Baltic flight BT652 to Riga International. This was provided by YL-CSF Alytus, an Airbus A220-300 registered, like all their aircraft in Latvia. We pushed off at 09:38, 28 minutes behind schedule and arrived at 14:18 local time.
With Starlink WiFi on board, there was no issue with Internet browsing, although I mainly stuck to watching a previously downloaded episode of the OG Mission: Impossible for the LOLs. They also provided in advance information on our arrival gate and luggage belt.
Flying over Latvia on the approach, two things became quickly apparent - Latvia has a lot of trees and many of the roads were a light brown, indicating that they weren't tarmaced.
The Riga Conference was on and I saw a German government jet on the stands as we arrived. EES is in operation at Riga; there was a bit of a queue, but not a massive one. I tend to be at the back of those anyway as I usually visit the gents after deplaning.
I'd pre-booked a taxi to the Eurostars Metropole (recommended by Seat61) via Booking.com. My driver turned out to be one of Riga's many Russian speakers; it should be pointed out that the vast majority of Russian signage that was once prevalent here has gone, but can still be found in some places.
After checking in, I had a look around the old city, which is an UNESCO world heritage site. The hotel is near the station, which has a decent array of eating and shopping places, including of the street food variety. Pretty much everywhere takes card payments.
Friday 11 September
This was a tourist day, which saw me using the buses mainly, but my return from the Ethnographic Museum to the city centre involved a ride in Tatra T3 35250. As I was transferring between the bus stop and the start of the tram route, I got passed on the highway by a four-wheeled green vehicle that I am pretty sure was an old Soviet BRDM-2 scout car, almost certainly privately owned.
I also tried some kvass here; it was decent enough, but it's not my first choice for a drink.
Saturday 12 September
I'd booked a tour of the former nuclear bunker at Skaļupes before I came, thinking that it would be a fairly easy case of getting a bus or a Bolt from the nearest station; Uber doesn't operate in Latvia. I got a return to Līgatne from Centrālā, which consisted of two single tickets at €3.60 a piece. Public transport remains cheap by Western European standards, but food is now at roughly British prices - Eastern Europe got hit badly by Ukraine-linked inflation.
My outbound train was DR1AC-187. This is my first 1524mm gauge train, although I'd ridden on a tram of the same gauge on Friday. The wider gauge results in some very spacious trains, with 2+2 seating and a wide aisle, although the steps from the low platforms are a challenge even for the fit. The DRA1Cs have an on-board vending machine - and the biggest toilets I have ever seen on a real-life train. You couldn't quite swing a cat, but you could certainly swing a yo-yo in there.
A somewhat bouncy ride through the countryside followed, with a grip from a conductor called Deniss. It was also rather warm inside, with an internal temperature of 23.5 degrees Celsius, in excess of the outside temperatures, which were in the high teens. Notable sights included:
- A policeman with an assault rifle at Garklone.
- A sleeper carriage, 06206, parked in a siding
- An army convoy waiting to cross the track.
I arrived at Līgatne... or rather I rushed off the train when I saw the sign. The display screen had gone faulty and lost track of our location.
I soon found that the bus that I thought ran on Saturday did not in fact run on Saturday at all, although a return one did. The station building is closed and the toilet is a portaloo with no handwashing facilities. Good thing I bought wet wipes.
I walked into the nearby town to kill some time, then tried to order a Bolt and found none available. Two taxi firms failed to yield a result - I am not sure they understood me. I made my way to a shop in one of the housing estates, having to rely on Google Translate Russian as the shopkeeper didn't speak Latvian... and then got offered a lift by a local. One ride in the passenger seat followed, with minimal leg room, little conversation and me deciding I would hit him with my backpack if he turned out to be an axe-murderer. The whole thing had a bit of an Ealing comedy air about it that I've experienced on other rural parts of trips recounted here.
He got me there alright though, and ended up €20 better off as a result.
The bunker, hidden beneath a sanatorium originally built for the Latvian SSR leadership and now open to the general public, is well worth doing - it makes a good compare-and-contrast with the UK ones I have visited. It is far more intact than most former USSR facilities in Latvia as it remained on the secret list until 2003; the others were looted in the 1990s, especially for their copper.
I was able to get a bus back to the town and after a walk down the unpaved road to the station, I saw 2M62UM-0117, a rebuilt 2M62 operated by LDZ, hauling a fuel train, probably bound for Lithuania judging by the "Lietuva" on the wagons. This was the only active locomotive I saw on the whole trip.
The journey back to the capital was on DR1AM-291, a 1990s modification that lacked the modern features of the DR1AC. No AC, no display screens, no vending machine, smaller toilet. The trip was a rather bouncy one, the train rattling a fair bit at speed.
Sunday 13 September
A tourist day that involved the Aviation and War Museums.
The former has a great collection of old Soviet aircraft, including the only Tu-22M "Backfire" bomber not in a war zone at the moment, although they are not in great condition and are open to the elements. The museum's owner is in his 80s, although he can still ride a bike.
The War Museum was also very interesting, including an exhibit on drone warfare with a couple of captured Russian examples, but has just shut for a refurbishment that will last until early next year.
The only public transport I used was buses; one route goes out to the aviation museum, but it's only hourly, so I ended up waiting for in the nearby village with its Soviet-era apartment blocks built for the old military base,
Monday 14 September
I bought a day pass covering the A to B zones including most of the coastal city of Jūrmala, even after the booking office lady said it was "expensive". I suppose €6.90 is expensive on Latvian terms, although I pay more than that for a one-way Tube journey in London.
I got the 1000 service to Vaivari, formed on 16EV-0026; there are ticket validators when you board the train, but the fact I'd not seen it the first time proved not to be an issue when I was gripped. The line is double-tracked and electrified, I believe going back to the 1960s when it was a highly popular holiday resort for people across the USSR, including the Soviet leadership. The trains run generally every thirty minutes to Sloka and hourly to Tukums II.
Jūrmala is a very long sandy beach separated by trees from a long string of what I assume are holiday homes. The beach was not hugely busy - it was the tail end of the season, a Monday and pretty cloudy. Quite a few of these are boarded up and fenced off; many look like they wouldn't be out of place in a slasher movie if Latvia made them, which so far they haven't.
(Latvia's biggest movie to date is the 2024 Oscar-winning animated film Flow and there were a lot of souvenirs related to it.)
I took a long walk through the area, during which I learnt that Air Baltic had entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US i.e. gone into administration, although the airline said my flight would still go ahead. They are now making the cabin crew clear the rubbish to save paying the local cleaners.
I eventually made my way to Melluži for a ride to Dubulti. The latter has a large art space in the station building, currently hosting an exhibition about volunteer "sheriffs" in Ukraine before the Russians took over their town.
After lunch at a Georgian restaurant and a long walk along the wooden path on the beach, I got to the shopping area of Dzintari, called Edinburgh until 1922 after Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who had married Nicholas II's daughter Maria. However, with time running short, I walked to that station, the footpath right next to the tracks with no fence (!) and then got the 1629 service to Centrālā, formed of 16EV-0019. This arrived slightly late.
Tuesday 15 September
The tourist day here involved the Occupation Museum (well worth visiting) and a walking tour of Riga with a focus on the Soviet Union period, conducted by a guide who had grown up in the 1990s, with his grandfather having spent time in Siberia in the Stalinist period. This ended outside the Russian embassy on the Street of Ukrainian Independence, with a poster showing Putin partly as a skull on the medical museum opposite. I decided against the old KGB HQ as I felt I'd done enough in that area.
I then went to the Latvian Railway History Museum. Compared to the NRM, this is a fairly small affair. There's a medium-sized collection of railway vehicles in the yard outside, including a "Stolypin" prisoner transport and a luxury carriage used by Latvian communist leadership. Interior tours are available, but they require a minimum group size of three and forty minutes. I had neither of those, so I couldn't do them.
I rode more trams today, including one of the modern low-floor ones.
Wednesday 16 September
A late checkout, followed by some walking around the local area, including up to the viewing platform of the Latvian Academy of Sciences - a Stalinist "wedding cake" structure that is the little niece to the Seven Sisters of Moscow and Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science.
I got a pre-booked taxi back to the airport, where I'd paid extra for the fast lane at security and also priority boarding. One very expensive zero-alcohol beer helped kill the time as I worked on another project ahead of boarding.
The flight to London was BT 653 on the Estonian flag-liveried YL-CSJ Tallinn, which departed 1544 UK time, getting airborne at 1547. I'd ordered a wrap burger as well, which was hard to hold (squirting cabbage juice out) and overpriced. Not helping was the fact that I'd managed to acquire a bad cold from somewhere, something that didn't shift for over a week afterwards. We had the seatbelt lights come on due to a turbulence warning, but nothing really happened there.
Touchdown at 1639 UK time and a relatively quick move through the passport gates before collecting my luggage. I decided to get Southern instead of Thameslink from Gatwick station, riding 377209 to Victoria. Then I got the joys of the evening peak as I returned home...
Conclusion
Latvia isn't the place to go for haulage; there's not really a great deal of variety there. But if you want to see an historic European city while getting a taste of Russian gauge, it's well worth visiting.
Stephen
