Rail Baltic Estonia has announced a construction procurement through which a Rail Baltica rolling stock depot will be built in Rae municipality, Harju County, by the end of 2028. The facility will be a strategic infrastructure object concentrating all maintenance, repair, and operation of the future high-speed railway’s rolling stock in Estonia. The maintenance and repair centre planned for the Soodevahe area will also become the largest depot in the Baltics.
The procurement covers both the preparation of the detailed design and the construction of the depot building and its internal service platforms. The deadline for submitting tenders is 10 March 2026, and the contract with the contractor is planned to be signed by the end of April. The deadline for completion of construction works is 31 December 2028.
The estimated value of the procurement is €41,331,818 excluding VAT.
According to Lauri Ulm, Technical Director and Member of the Management Board of Rail Baltic Estonia, the rolling stock depot is of critical importance for the functioning of Rail Baltica, both from a system and employment perspective.
“The rolling stock depot to be built in Rae municipality will enable the simultaneous servicing of up to six high-speed trains or twelve regional trains and will bring all rolling stock maintenance and readiness functions together into a single integrated whole. This means 150–200 permanent, highly qualified jobs and provides a strong foundation for the operational reliability of Rail Baltica for decades to come,” said Ulm, noting that the depot will become one of the key centres of competence for rolling stock repair and maintenance in the entire Baltic region.
“The building is not intended solely for train maintenance; it will bring under one roof all infrastructure serving the rolling stock life cycle – from repair and washing to office facilities.”
The main volume of the planned depot is divided into two parts. The central section of the building is the rolling stock maintenance hall, housing all maintenance and repair functions, while the second volume consists of a three-storey administrative block.
The depot building is planned to include eight tracks, six of which are maintenance and service tracks with a usable length of 1,380 metres. This allows for the simultaneous servicing of up to six high-speed trains (approximately 220 m) or up to twelve regional trains (approximately 110 m), as well as their combined formations according to operational needs. In addition, a separate train wash and a wheel lathe track for wheelset profiling are planned.
The outdoor area will include six additional service tracks for train cleaning, equipping, and parking, increasing the depot’s overall simultaneous service capacity to a level comparable to that of the building itself.
The national passenger train operator Elron will be the first to use the rolling stock depot, acting as a user of the depot and related services under a lease agreement.
The design procurement for the rolling stock depot was won in 2020 by a joint bid submitted by OÜ Reaalprojekt and NORD PROJEKT AS.
If the procurement procedure proceeds as planned, construction of the rolling stock depot will begin at the end of 2026, and the building will be handed over to Rail Baltic Estonia by the end of 2028.