VR prepares Pendolino Plus

In February this year, VR announced that they will start operating new services under the name Pendolino Plus on the routes from Helsinki to Turku and Oulu at the end of 2025, where they will partially replace the existing InterCity and Pendolino trains.

Karelian Train era

The Pendolino Plus will be four seven-car units of the Class Sm6, Nos. 7051 - 7054, formerly known as Allegro, which were ordered in September 2007 by the then Karelian Trains for international transport on the Helsinki - St. Petersburg route. Karelian Trains was a joint venture of VR (50 %) and RZD (50 %), the name of which contained the word Karelia, the original land of the Karelians, which is currently divided between Russia (Leningradskaya oblast and the Republic of Karelia) and Finland (provinces of South Karelia and North Karelia).

The dual-voltage Allegro tilting Pendolini with a maximum speed of 220 km/h, manufactured by Alstom, have eight powered axles, an output of 5,500 kW and are based on the six-car Class Sm3 Pendolini, of which VR ordered a total of 18 units (220 km/h, 25 kV 50 Hz, 4,000 kW, eight powered axles). The Class Sm6 trains began operation in December 2010 and on a 456 km long route, RZD was operated on Russian territory and VR on Finnish territory. Thus, the Allegros could work on the Finnish 1,524 mm gauge network and on the Russian 1,520 mm gauge network. The contact point of the 3 kV DC and 25 kV 50 Hz voltage systems is at the Buslovskaya border station in front of the Russian-Finnish border.

Allegro services introduced a new level of travel between the above-mentioned cities. This concerned not only the interior, but also a significant reduction in travel time, which was expressed by the Latin name of the Allegro trains "fast, lively". The travel time between Helsinki and St. Peterburg was reduced from more than 6 hours for regular international expresses to 3.5 hours, which was achieved primarily by eliminating the lengthy passport clearance at the Russian-Finnish border.

This took place at the Vyborg and Vainikkala stations and each took about an hour due to the visa requirement for Russian citizens to visit Finland and vice versa for EU citizens to visit Russia. Therefore, passport checks were newly carried out by customs officers directly on the train from St. Peterburg to Vyborg and in the opposite direction on the Helsinki - Vainikkala section.

The higher speed of the Class Sm6 Pendolini also contributed to the reduction in travel times. Allegros reached their highest speed of 220 km/h only in Finland, on the Kerava (north of Helsinki) - Hakosilta (southwest of Lahti) section. On other Finnish sections, they ran at a maximum speed of 200 km/h, and on Russian territory at 140 - 200 km/h. The Class Sm6 was primarily maintained at the Ilmala depot in the north of Helsinki. Part of the operational maintenance, mainly related to Russian systems, was carried out at the St. Peterburg Finlyandsky depot.

After the Russian invasion

The described situation prevailed until the end of March 2022, when these services were canceled after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (until the last moment they were used by Russian citizens who wanted to flee the country after the start of the war - for men either out of fear of being drafted into the army, or generally due to the sad political situation in Russia). On account of the Finnish sanctions against Russia and its ongoing aggression (not only against Ukraine), VR announced a plan to deploy the Sm6s in domestic transport in 2023.

VR stated that RZD also violated the joint venture agreement by not maintaining the trains and not providing the relevant part of the contractual financing. Negotiations to resolve the situation failed and VR consequently only repaid the joint venture's loans and took over the units that had been deposited in Finland in December 2023. Ukrzaliznytsia also expressed interest in the Class Sm6 trains, but for VR these are valuable vehicles that offer the potential to improve services, so this idea was dropped.

Pendolino Plus on start

In 2024, VR therefore began modifying these Pendolini for new use, which is a bit of a paradox, since the Class Sm6 underwent a complete interior modernization in 2018 - 19. However, the current modifications will also introduce a completely new, higher-quality travel class, Extra Plus, in which passengers will have a separate steward and will be able to order food delivered to their seats in advance, which was often requested in VR‘s customer surveys. The Pendolino Plus will have a capacity of 346 seated passengers; the original capacity was 344, including two for wheelchair users.

The Classs Sm6 Pendolini will be the first VR trains in Finland with the new color scheme, as they will be in service before the Class Sm7 FLIRTs. However, this new VR scheme was already seen last year, on the FLIRT EMUs of the Swedish open access operator MTR Express, which VR took over in 2024.

Work on the Sm6 units is still ongoing and none is yet fully completed. Their test runs will start in the summer and will be combined with driver training. The timetable for the Pendolino Plus services will be announced in the summer. VR added: “With the Pendolino Plus trains, we can better meet the growing demand. The Pendolino and IC trains that will be released from the Oulu and Turku services will be added to the timetable on other routes.”