At a time when shipping is the big thing in discussions of Arctic development, it will be rail that attracts everyone’s attention this week. On February 28, the Finnish transport minister will receive a report making the case for building a railway from Rovaniemi northward to the Barents Sea.
Officially known as a request for information, it will plot the best route, forecast demand and weigh in on whether it is worth building at all.
Tellingly of the weight decision-makers place on shipping as an economic catalyst, the point the ‘Arctic corridor’ railway will be to link Finland to the Northern Sea Route, an emerging shipping lane along Russia’s northern coast.
Because Finland is landlocked to the north, any such a railway would need to a terminus in either Norway (with Kirkenes, Narvik and Skibotn being the most frequently named options) or Russia (which promotes Murmansk as the natural location for a rail-port transfer point).
A Norwegian route is looking most likely. It helped draw up the report, and a 2014 video (below) identifies Kirkenes as the port of choice, though newer material is diplomatically vague about this detail.
Those favoring Murmansk are not giving up without a good argument. Kirkenes and Skibotn, they point out, have no existing rail links. Narvik only one. Murmansk, on the other hand, is already tied into Russia’s Eurasian network.
As much as that jibes with the point of the project, it appears that it will not be enough to get the Finns to change track.
For more information
Information request on the Arctic railway
Further reading
Finland commissions study on new Arctic railway