Porvoo Museum Railway

The last freight train left Porvoo in November 1990, and the line was due to be torn up. Railway enthusiasts kept it by offering to maintain it, and the next summer they were running museum trains from Helsinki. Their association, Porvoo Museum Railway, looked after the 16.5 kilometres from the junction at Olli to Porvoo with its own hands for twenty years, until the state's track agency took the line over in 2013. On 23 October 2024 the trains were banned: the track bed had worn out. A year later, on 6 October 2025, the line became a private railway in the association's care again, and the volunteers reopened it with a train on 1 May 2026.

What they run are Lättähattu railbuses, the diesel railcars that carried Finland's local traffic from the 1950s until 1988, in blue and white or in yellow. Some summer days a train runs all the way from Helsinki, about two hours over the main line and then onto the old branch of 1874; on others it shuttles from Porvoo out to Olli and back. Either way the last stretch is the same: fields, forest and two river bridges, on rails rolled between the 1890s and the 1920s, the oldest in Finland still carrying passengers.

The train stops at Porvoo's old station, 500 metres from the old town across the river. There are no seat reservations and no advance tickets: the conductor sells them on board.

A through train leaves Helsinki from one of tracks 7 to 12, shown on the boards as MUS and a number in the 1900s, and runs out over the main line with the commuter trains, stopping at Tikkurila and Kerava. At Kerava it turns east onto the Porvoo line, which since 1972 has carried the oil and chemical trains to the Sköldvik refinery. Nikkilä is the last stop on that stretch, at a platform beside the old station. At Olli, 17 kilometres from Kerava, the wires go off towards the refinery and the railbus carries on along the line of 1874.

The museum line

The first stop is Ali-Vekkoski, where the line crosses the Mustijoki on a two-span steel bridge. This is where the railway's last spike was driven on 28 June 1874, and where it caused the most trouble: the timber trestle the builders used to raise an embankment on the clay of the river bank collapsed, and the line had to be moved to firmer ground, with extra curves and two narrow rock cuttings hacked out by hand. The first bridge was wooden. When Runeberg's funeral party crossed it by special train in 1877, behind a state locomotive heavier than the company's own, it creaked alarmingly, and by 1890 passengers had to get out and walk across.

Hinthaara, a station since 1876, has a goods shed, a passing loop and platforms laid in 2002, so that trains from Porvoo can turn back here. Then come Haksi and Kiiala, request stops, and a last kilometre rebuilt in the 1970s to clear the motorway, before the train runs in beside the river at Porvoo.

The oldest rails

Its rails have hardly changed since the 1930s, when the line was relaid with second-hand rails only eight metres long, rolled by different makers between the 1890s and the 1920s, and they are still there, fixed with old-pattern spikes and plates. When the track to Olli was rebuilt for the refinery traffic in the 1970s, the Porvoo end was left as it was. A piece of the English rail of 1874 survives in the track to the turntable at Porvoo.

Bankrupt, auctioned, bought

The railway was built by a private company, backed by the town, because Porvoo feared that the new line from Helsinki to Hämeenlinna would carry its trade away to Helsinki. Johan Ludvig Runeberg was among the fifty leading citizens who petitioned for state aid in 1863, and got none. It opened on 18 November 1874 and went bankrupt in 1878, when its trains stopped altogether; in 1887 it was sold at auction for 400,000 marks. On 22 June 1917 its workers walked out over pay and traffic stopped again, and because Helsinki's food supply depended on the line, the Senate bought it for the state that October. Railcars ran through from Porvoo to Helsinki from 1932. The motorway finished off the passenger trains, which ended in May 1981.

The railbuses

Valmet built the Dm7 railcars from 1955 to 1963 at its aircraft works in Tampere, under licence from a Swedish design, with a straight-eight diesel of 180 horsepower. The association owns three motor cars, 4163, 4207 and 4211, and a trailer, 11592, which still has its original seats and carries bicycles and prams in its luggage compartment. The cars came from VR's depot at Oulu in the early 1990s, and the volunteers maintain them themselves, mostly over the winter in Helsinki. A full train of four cars seats 226.

The museum trains run on set dates from May to September, not every day, and each year's dates are published through the spring and summer. There are two kinds of trip: a through train between Helsinki and Porvoo, a few times a season, and a round trip from Porvoo to Olli and back on summer weekends. No reservation is possible or needed. Stops marked x are request stops: tell the crew when you board if you want to get off at one, and be there early to get on, since the train may pass a halt before its listed time. Nobody may board or leave the train at Olli.

Times below are the operator's 2026 timetable as published in June 2026, read in October 2026. The 2027 dates will appear on the Porvoo Museum Railway timetable page (opens in a new tab).

Helsinki and Porvoo — Friday 12 June 2026

Other through trains in 2026 ran from Porvoo to Helsinki on Sunday 24 May (15:00, in Helsinki at 17:12) and from the Finnish Railway Museum at Hyvinkää and Riihimäki to Porvoo on Wednesday 27 May (Riihimäki 11:40, Porvoo 13:50). There were no Helsinki trains in July, because of track work on the main line; the August and September dates were published later in the summer.

Porvoo to Olli and back

In 2026 this ran on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June, Monday 13 July and Sunday 26 July; on Sunday 28 June an hour later, at 14:00, and on Saturday 18 July two hours earlier, at 11:00. On some days an extra evening train ran from Ali-Vekkoski at 17:45 to Porvoo, arriving at 18:14.

There are no advance tickets and no seat reservations. The conductor walks through the cars during the trip and sells tickets by card or in cash; MobilePay is not accepted. On the fares valid from 1 June 2026, a single from Helsinki or Tikkurila to Porvoo cost €30 and a return €40, and the round trip from Porvoo to Olli and back €15. Children aged 10 to 17 pay half, under-10s ride free, and groups of ten adults paying together get 10 % off.

Bicycles, scooters and prams travel free in the trailer's luggage compartment, but pets are not allowed on the train. On a hot day there is no air-conditioning, only windows and roof hatches.

Interrail and Eurail passes do not cover the museum train. Interrail's list of what the pass covers in Finland names only VR and the Helsinki commuter trains of HSL. Porvoo Museum Railway is a volunteer operator outside it, so even the stretch of its through train over VR's main line needs the museum railway's own ticket, bought on board.

A pass is no help for this trip, and not worth buying for it: the round trip from Porvoo costs €15. If you already hold one, VR's commuter trains will take you as far as Kerava, but the museum train is the only train to Porvoo.

Pass conditions checked against Interrail's railway-companies page, last updated 21 October 2026. Conditions change with each season, and the pass issuer's page is the one that binds.

Everything worth the trip is in Porvoo itself. The station is on the west bank of the river, and the old town with its cathedral and museum is across the bridge, 500 metres away; Runeberg's Home is on Aleksanterinkatu, in the town centre.

Porvoo is an easy day out from Helsinki, but the museum trains are timed from the Porvoo end: in 2026 the through train of 12 June left Porvoo at midday and came back from Helsinki in the evening, and the round trips to Olli start from Porvoo. A night in the old town makes the timing easy. In summer the m/s J.L. Runeberg sails between Helsinki and Porvoo, which makes a trip out by train and back by boat.

The places below keep their own websites and take direct bookings.

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