New rail ferry for Estonia-Finland traffic - in the making

Fennorail has entrusted Deltamarin with designing a vessel for carrying trailers, trucks, and wagons.

Eurocarrier will offer 2,500 lane metres of capacity, including 1,000 for train cargo (of the 1,520 mm gauge).

Plans speak of connecting Estonia and Finland's TEN-T rail networks, with Paldiski as the receiving port on the Estonian side.

According to Sjöfartstidningen, Eurocarrier will initially offer two daily round trips. The newbuild could enter traffic as soon as 2025.

"We strive to make the train ferry climate-friendly and profitable. The train ferry will have multifuel marine engines that can run on either pure LNG [liquefied natural gas], a mixture of LNG and green hydrogen or marine gas oil (MGO)," Kaj Jansson, Member of the Board of Fennorail, highlighted.

He furthered, "Ships propulsion system is arranged by two 360-degree rotating pods which increases the propulsion efficiency and ships manoeuvrability. Deltamarin is well acquainted with these technologies and their manufacturers and combines them with their own advanced ship design knowledge. In addition, they have well proven experience in supervising the ships construction process."

"We are very happy that Fennorail with its partners have selected Deltamarin to design this unique vessel, which aims to connect Finland to the European railway network and support the goals of the Paris Agreement by moving part of the road cargo onto rail, offering significant emission cuts per transported cargo tonne-kilometre. Deltamarin is known as the leading designer for environmentally friendly vessels, and this project is a good continuation of our pathway towards zero-carbon shipping," Jaakko Lappi, Deltamarin's Sales Manager, also commented.

Photo: Deltamarin