LITHUANIA | Railway Museum and Rail Park in Vilnius

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?

In won’t surprise you we can’t resist a railway museum. And there is one inside Vilnius Central Railway Station (Vilniaus geležinkelio stotis). Inside! So we immediately expected something similar to the Muzeul CFR in Bucharest, the railway museum of Romania. Which is just one room.

But no, it isn’t.

The Railway Museum

The Railway Museum in Vilnius, officially known as the Geležinkelių muziejus, is housed within the city’s historic railway station on Geležinkelio g. 16. The station itself dates back to 1861 and has long served as a gateway to the capital.

The museum was first established in 1966 as the Railway Workers’ Hall of Fame and later evolved into a broader institution dedicated to Lithuanian rail heritage. It has moved locations over the decades but since 1998 has been situated inside the station, occupying part of the former nineteenth-century passenger hall.

It’s called Railway Museum. Not Vilnius Railway Museum, not Railway Museum of Lithuania. No, just Railway Museum. Why complicate things, right?

Inside, the museum is spread across three thematic halls on the station’s second floor, bringing together around nine hundred exhibits. These cover the full spectrum of railway life, from signalling equipment, tools and construction materials to luggage, ticket safes, models and photographs.

After a two-and-a-half-year renovation, the museum reopened in 2022 with a refreshed concept called Colorful Journey. This modernised design invites visitors to pass through a series of themed ‘stations’, such as ‘Train‘, ‘Signals’, ‘Work‘ and ‘Children’s Station‘, while engaging with interactive projections, multimedia displays, and even simulators that let you experience the role of a train driver.

Younger visitors can explore through play, and there are structured educational programmes with names like ‘Be Safe‘ or ‘Your Trip Discoveries‘. Audio guides are available free of charge, and guided tours tailored to different age groups can be booked in advance.

Rail Park

Beyond the indoor collection, the museum extends into an open-air exhibition known as the Rail Park, aka Bėgių Parkas. Covering more than seven thousand square metres beside the tracks, it displays a range of historic rolling stock and railway machinery.

Here you will find locomotives, wagons, railcars, boilers, pumps and maintenance equipment, including the impressive SO-17 steam locomotive from 1937. This outdoor space is freely accessible from the station’s first platform, and unlike the indoor museum it does not require a ticket.

The Rail Park has been designed not just as a static display but as a living urban space. Benches, lighting and greenery soften the old industrial setting, while playful touches such as swings made from train wheels and a so-called magical bell that “fulfils travel wishes” give it a lighter, community-friendly character. The Rail Park is free.

Both spaces are easily accessible for visitors. The indoor museum is generally open from Tuesday to Saturday between nine in the morning and six in the evening, while the Rail Park can be visited every day from early morning until late evening.

Admission to the indoor collection is modestly priced, with discounts for students and seniors, family tickets available, and free entry for preschool children. The outdoor park, by contrast, is free to all.

Together, the Railway Museum and Rail Park form a distinctive attraction that combines heritage, education, and play.

They offer not only a look into Lithuania’s rail history but also a cultural and recreational space within the very heart of Vilnius’s railway station.

A visit

We were pleasantly surprised by the Railway Museum. It’s colourful, it’s fresh, it’s fun, it’s in Lithuanian. Use Google Translate to help you with the simulators.

The Rail Park is fun as well, with 1997 or 1998 rolling stock looking like it was designed in the 1970s.

Railways in Lithuania

Railways in Lithuania trace their origins to the mid-19th century, when the Russian Empire initiated the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw railway. Construction on the Lithuanian section began in 1859, featuring key links such as Daugavpils–Vilnius–Grodno and Lentvaris–Kaunas–Virbalis, completed by 1862.

The inaugural train reached Vilnius from Daugavpils on 17 September 1860, with commercial operations commencing shortly thereafter on 11 April 1861 between Kaunas (temporary station) and Eydtkuhnen in East Prussia. Around twenty-one stations were initially established, and the construction of civil engineering works such as the Kaunas and Paneriai tunnels facilitated this rapid expansion, which between 1857 and 1914 accounted for nearly two thirds of the network used late in the twentieth century.

During World War I, German forces occupied Lithuania and transformed much of the railway infrastructure: they replaced the broad-gauge (1,524 mm) track with standard European gauge (1,435 mm) and additionally built numerous narrow military lines with 600 mm gauge.

After Lithuania regained independence in 1918, the Ministry of Transport assumed control of the railways in 1919, and efforts were made to reconnect and consolidate the network. The Klaipėda region’s reintegration in 1923 brought Lithuania’s port railway into the system, and the interwar period saw a considerable expansion of narrow-gauge lines, especially in the north-east, boosting rural economic development.

With the Soviet occupation in 1940, the railway system was reorganised, and most track was converted back to the Soviet broad gauge. The Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1944 again altered the gauge, only for Soviet authorities to revert it once more. Post-war reconstruction removed many narrow-gauge lines—about 400 km were dismantled—and the Baltics’ railways were centrally managed from Riga. The first electric train began operations on the electrified Vilnius–Kaunas line on 29 December 1975.

Following the restoration of independence in 1991, Lithuania re-entered international rail organisations, formalised its national railway company – Lietuvos geležinkeliai AB -, and began a phase of modernisation.

Through the 2000s, upgrades included raising speeds—up to 160 km/h for passenger trains and up to 120 km/h for freight—implementing modern signalling and communication systems such as GSM-R and ERTMS, and introducing new rolling stock from manufacturers like Siemens, Pesa, and Škoda. In 2020, construction began on the ambitious Rail Baltica high-speed project.

In terms of network scale, Lithuania has approximately 1,762 km of broad (1,520 mm) gauge track—of which about 123 km are standard-gauge connected to Poland—and electrically equipped sections amount to just 122 km.

A later source gives a slightly updated total of roughly 1,869 km, including 1,745.8 km broad gauge and 123 km standard gauge, with 104 stations, numerous crossings, viaducts, and bridges across the infrastructure.

On the operational front today, Lithuanian Railways (LTG Group) oversees the national network via its main subsidiaries: LTG Link for passenger services, LTG Cargo for freight, and LTG Infra for infrastructure. In 2022, LTG transported about 4.69 million passengers and 31 million tonnes of freight, largely consisting of oil products and fertilisers.

Passenger rail services include domestic routes such as Vilnius–Kaunas—first built in 1862 and electrified (1975)—where the fastest trains complete the journey in around 62 minutes. The Vilnius–Klaipėda route, spanning 376 km, is undergoing electrification (as of 2022), which will reduce annual CO₂ emissions by about 150,000 tonnes once completed.

International connections have expanded recently, with services such as Vilnius–Riga customised for 2023 and beyond. Since 2022, passengers can also travel between Vilnius and Warsaw (with a gauge change at the border) and from 2025, the Vilnius–Riga–Tallinn corridor is operational.

A notable cultural and tourist feature is the preserved narrow-gauge railway such as the Aukštaitija line (Panevėžys–Rubikiai), originally built in the late 19th century. It spans approximately 68.4 km at 750 mm gauge and now operates as a heritage service with protected infrastructure and rolling stock.

Finally, the Rail Baltica project stands as a transformational endeavour. It will establish a European-gauge high-speed railway across the Baltics — covering 870 km in total (392 km in Lithuania) — linking Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas/Vilnius, and Warsaw.

The full network is due to be operational by 2030, with partial service expected from 2028. Rail Baltica is positioned as a strategic European Union priority, underpinning integration, improved mobility, economic growth, environmental benefits, and enhanced (military) security.

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