Rail transport in Latvia is primarily conducted on broad-gauge railways. The main railway company is the state-owned Latvijas dzelzceÃ¼à ¡ (LDz), with its subsidiary Pasaà ¾ieru vilciens (PV) providing passenger services.
Historically, Latvia had lots of different rail gauges, most notably standard gauge and narrow gauge. These were gradually replaced by the Russian gauge after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states.
The Rail Baltica project aims to connect Latvia and the other Baltic states to the European standard gauge by approximately 2030. Ten regional stations are planned in the section from Bauska to Salacgrëva.
Although PV has been a monopolist in passenger train, in February 2022 the Road Transport Administration of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia announced the first market survey on potential private rail passenger service providers.
Rail Baltica is an ongoing greenfield railway infrastructure project which will link all Baltic States, including Latvia, Poland and, eventually, Finland. Being a part of the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T), it is one of the priority projects of the European Union. It will introduce standard-gauge high-speed rail with an operating speed of 249 km/h for passenger trains. As of 2023, the Rail Baltica project completion is scheduled for 2030, with a start of services on some of the sections in 2028.
In 2022, the European Union proposed to convert all non-standard gauges in Europe to standard gauge. The Latvian government believes it would require major EU funding to implement.