August 2025. We’re travelling to the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and more specifically their respective capitals Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. Are they interconnected by rail? Yes, but not in the most straightforward or userfriendly way possible. The Rail Baltica project should remedy this. Unsurprisingly though, this megaproject faces political and budgetary hurdles. It will most likely not be ready by 2030. But that doesn’t stop us. What to expect from the Baltics? Is it affected by  overtourism? 

After a dose of Jugendstil, we headed for a dose of modernity at the National Library of Latvia or Latvijas Nacionālā bibliotēka. We just popped inside to have a wee and a look and a wee look. 

Next to the Library, the Latvian Railway History Museum or Latvijas dzelzceļa vēstures muzejs is located.

National Library of Latvia

The National Library of Latvia is one of Riga’s most striking landmarks — both for its role in the country’s cultural life and for its gleaming modern building on the left bank of the River Daugava. The library’s story began on 29 August 1919, a year after Latvia declared independence. 

Originally called the State Library, it was founded under the guidance of Jānis Misiņš, a pioneering bibliographer whose own vast collection formed the heart of the new institution. Within a year, the shelves already held 250,000 volumes, boosted by a legal deposit rule that required publishers to supply copies of their works. 

By the late 1930s, the library’s holdings had grown dramatically, particularly after acquiring collections from Baltic German institutions when most Baltic Germans left Latvia in 1939–40.

War and occupation brought change. Under Nazi rule (1941–44) the library was renamed the ‘Country Library‘ to strip away any mention of Latvian statehood. During the Soviet period, it became the State Library of the Latvian SSR, later carrying the honorary name of Vilis Lācis, a writer and Soviet Latvian prime minister. 

For decades, books deemed politically dangerous were kept in restricted access, available only with special permission. In 1956, the library moved to Krišjāņa Barona Street, its home for nearly 60 years.

With Latvia’s renewed independence in 1991 came a return to its true name, the National Library of Latvia. 

New acquisitions followed, including the Baltic Central Library of Otto Bong in 1995, a rich resource for Baltic history and languages. Today, the library holds more than five million titles, among them around 18,000 manuscripts dating back to the 14th century. It remains the guardian of Latvia’s literary heritage, producing the national bibliography and pioneering catalogues such as the award-winning ‘Seniespiedumi latviešu valodā‘ and the ‘Letonikas grāmatu autoru rādītājs‘.

The library also houses remarkable poster collections from Latvian and international artists, and since 1999 has been digitising its holdings. Its digital library, Letonica, offers online access to newspapers, books, maps, music scores and audio archives, with special collections dedicated to historic Latvian Song and Dance Festivals.

The idea of a new home for the library had been discussed since 1928, but it took decades for the vision to materialise. By the 1980s, the collections were scattered across five sites in Riga, with rare books stored in a former Soviet missile bunker outside the city. In 1989, 

Latvian-American architect Gunnar Birkerts was commissioned to design a single purpose-built home. Inspired by Latvian legends of the Castle of Light and the Glass Mountain, his design took shape in the early 21st century. Construction began in 2008, and in January 2014 a human chain carried books from the old building to the new. The Castle of Light opened on 29 August 2014, the library’s 95th anniversary.

Standing 68 metres high with thirteen floors, the building is as much a cultural venue as it is a library, hosting conferences, exhibitions and international events, from the 2015 Eastern Partnership summit to public debates. It remains a beacon of knowledge and national pride, bringing together Latvia’s past, present and future under one remarkable roof.

Latvian Railway History Museum

I love the quirk of naming the museum Latvian Railway History Museum and not just Railway Museum. 

The Latvian Railway History Museum is the country’s tribute to its rail heritage, with exhibitions in both Riga and Jelgava. Run as a division of the national railway company, Latvijas dzelzceļš, it is home to the largest collection of wide-gauge railway vehicles in the Baltic region.

The main branch in Riga sits in the Pārdaugava district, a short stroll from the National Library. Its home is a former locomotive repair shop, with events and concerts sometimes held in an adjoining 1880s locomotive depot. 

Opened on 30 August 1994, the museum has amassed over a thousand railway-related artefacts — everything from uniforms and vintage tickets to timetables and signalling equipment. 

Outside, visitors can wander among a lineup of restored rolling stock, including locomotives, wagons and other machinery once vital to Latvia’s railways. Adding a touch of charm, the site also has a resident cat named Pearl, who has become something of a mascot.

The Jelgava branch has an even longer history. It first opened on Christmas Eve in 1982 as the Jelgava Railway Department’s Open Achievement Museum, housed in the city’s Railway Club. 

In 1991, it moved into a former railwaymen’s residential building dating back to 1903, conveniently located near Jelgava railway station. Its displays are a hands-on look at the infrastructure behind the trains — semaphores, couplings, trolleys, locomotive wheelsets, hydrants and level crossing equipment, all offering a glimpse into the practical workings of Latvia’s railways over the decades.

Together, the Riga and Jelgava sites tell the full story of how the railways shaped Latvia’s transport network, industry and everyday life — from the grand locomotives to the smallest ticket stub.

Visiting the railway museum

The Latvian Railway History Museum is medium-sized compared to others. It’s exhibition is varied, but not super extensive. It’s ‘simple’. But we’re easy customers, as we just really like trains. 

Railways in Latvia

Latvia’s railways are more than just steel tracks and timetables — they’re a mirror of the country’s political shifts, industrial growth, and changing ways of life. 

For over 160 years, they’ve carried everything from timber and coal to seaside holidaymakers, post-war migrants, and Soviet freight trains bound for the Baltic ports. Along the way, the network has switched between broad, standard, and even narrow-gauge rails, depending on which empire or government was in charge.

The story began in 1861, when the first train in what is now Latvia ran along the Pskov–Daugavpils–Vilnius line. This broad-gauge route linked the region firmly to the Russian Empire, both economically and strategically. Riga joined the map a year later, when a line connected the capital to Daugavpils, with onward links to Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

By the 1870s, the railways had become vital trade arteries: the line from Liepāja to Romny in Ukraine opened up the port for grain exports, while Ventspils was tied into the empire’s freight network.

In 1877, a direct line from Riga to Tukums gave city dwellers easy access to the coast, sparking the rise of seaside resorts like Jūrmala. Over the next decade, branch lines pushed deeper into the countryside, carrying agricultural produce to market and bringing manufactured goods the other way. 

The 1890s saw a wave of narrow-gauge construction, ideal for rural Latvia’s lighter traffic. These lines were cheaper to build, but their lower speeds and smaller capacity meant they were always secondary to the broad-gauge main lines.

World War I brought this expansion to an abrupt halt. German forces arrived in 1915, converting key lines to standard gauge to match their own rolling stock. They also built temporary 600 mm ‘military railways’ to move troops and supplies closer to the front. By the war’s end, Latvia’s rail network was a messy tangle of gauges, with damaged bridges and partially dismantled sections.

When Latvia declared independence in 1918, its newly formed Latvijas Valsts Dzelzsceļi faced a huge rebuilding task. 

The focus was on repairing wartime damage, restoring broad gauge to the main lines, and improving connectivity within the new borders. One of the biggest achievements was the opening of the Jelgava–Liepāja line in 1929, which for the first time linked these two cities entirely on Latvian territory, avoiding the need to cross into Lithuania.

The 1930s brought steady progress: suburban commuter services expanded around Riga, freight yards were modernised, and new lines improved access to industrial centres. Yet the railway remained somewhat traditional — self-propelled railcars, which were becoming popular in other European countries, never gained much traction here.

Soviet annexation in 1940 brought the Latvian network under the control of the USSR’s giant railway system. Wartime once again damaged bridges and track, but by the late 1940s the network was being rebuilt to Soviet standards. 

The post-war decades saw heavy investment in freight capacity, particularly to serve Latvia’s ice-free ports at Riga, Liepāja and Ventspils. Passenger trains were plentiful in the Soviet era, with long-distance sleepers running deep into Russia and electric suburban services connecting the capital with its growing commuter belt.

Independence in 1991 marked another turning point. Passenger services were reduced to reflect lower demand, but freight remained a mainstay, especially oil, coal and timber exports. The network today is a mix of electric and diesel lines: electric services dominate the busy suburban routes to Jūrmala, Jelgava, and Skulte, while diesel units handle longer journeys to Liepāja, Cēsis, Gulbene, Rēzekne and Daugavpils.

A living link to the past still exists in the Gulbene–Alūksne narrow-gauge railway, a 750 mm line that operates both scheduled trains and tourist services, complete with vintage locomotives. 

Looking to the future, the most ambitious project is Rail Baltica — a high-speed standard-gauge corridor now under construction. Once complete, it will connect Riga directly with Tallinn and Vilnius, and onward to the wider European network, at speeds that would have seemed almost impossible in the days of steam.

Through all these changes, Latvia’s railways have adapted to shifting borders, changing technologies, and new economic realities. From the rhythmic clatter of a Soviet-era diesel through pine forests to the quiet hum of a future high-speed train, they remain a vital thread in the country’s story — carrying the past, present and future along the same set of tracks.

Railway and transport museums 

• REVIEW | The Railway Museum, Ōmiya, Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture.
• REVIEW | ‘Belgian Railways Under Occupation: Between Collaboration and Resistance’ at Train World in Brussels.
• REVIEW | Conservatoire National de Véhicules Historiques & Musée d’Histoire de la Brasserie de Diekirch car and beer museums in Diekirch, Luxembourg.
• A visit of the Flemish Tram and Bus Museum – Vlaams Tram- en Autobusmuseum (VlaTAM) in Antwerp.
• MONTREAL | Exporail – Canadian Railway Museum in Saint-Constant.
• REVIEW | Motion and emotion at the London Transport Museum.
• BAVARIA | Lokwelt – Locomotive World in Freilassing .
• REVIEW | Orient-Express exhibition at Train World, Brussels’ railway museum.
• REVIEW | Train World exhibition ‘From Peking to Hankow: a Belgian adventure in China’.
• PHOTOS | Train World railway museum in Brussels.
• Railway and transport museums (not) to visit.
• Nuremberg Transport Museum / DB Museum. 
• Slovenian Railway Museum in Ljubljana. 
• VIDEO | Mail Rail and The Postal Museum in London. 
• Plans for a steam train heritage service between Brussels and Mechelen shelved.
• PHOTOS | Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid Delicias railway museum.
• VIDEO | Museu del Ferrocarril de Catalunya – Catalonia Railway Museum in Vilanova.
• REVIEW | Romanian Railway Museum ‘Muzeul CFR’ and Bucharest.
• PHOTOS | UK’s National Railway Museum (NRM) in York.
• PHOTOS | Swiss Museum of Transport Verkehrshaus in Lucerne.
• PHOTOS | Het Spoorwegmuseum – Dutch Railway Museum in Utrecht.
• VIDEO | Return to Spoorwegmuseum Utrecht for the dining car exhibition ‘Tosti’s, truffels, treinen’.
• VIDEO | Stoomtram Hoorn – Medemblik steamtram light rail in Holland.
• Visiting Odense and the Danish Railway Museum.
• Deutsches Museum’s Verkehrszentrum or Transport Centre in Munich.

Baltic States 2025

1. REVIEW | The Loft by Brussels Airlines and Lexus business lounge at Brussels Airport A-Gates.
2. REVIEW | Brussels Airlines Business Class Brussels to Munich.
3. REVIEW | Lufthansa Business Lounge Schengen and Lufthansa Senator Business Lounge Satellite Schengen at Munich Airport Terminal 2.
4. REVIEW | Air Baltic Business Class Munich to Tallinn.
5. REVIEW | Swissotel Tallinn.
6. TALLINN | Lennusadam Seaplane Harbour Estonian Maritime Museum.
7. TALLINN | Estonian History Museum at the Great Guild Hall.
8. TALLINN | LGBT tour at Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom.
9. RAIL BALTICA | Baltic operators launch joint tender for regional trains.
10. ESTONIA | How to spend a day in Tallinn.
11. REVIEW | Pullman Riga Old Town.
12. LATVIA | Riga Castle.
13. LATVIA | Jugendstil in Riga ft Riga Art Nouveau Centre and Janis Rozentāls and Rūdolfs Blaumanis Museum.