Riga to Jūrmala — the beach line

Riga's beach is a train ride away. The line west out of the city opened on 21 September 1877 to Tukums, in Courland, and on the way it ran through a string of fishing villages and landowners' summer houses between the Gulf of Riga and the River Lielupe. The railway made them a resort. Today they are one city, Jūrmala, "seaside", with a beach of white sand 33 kilometres long, and its stations come one after another: Lielupe, Bulduri, Dzintari, Majori, Dubulti.

The trains run every half hour, and Majori, the middle of the resort, is 31 minutes from Riga. Beyond it the line keeps to the narrow strip between river and sea as far as Sloka, then turns inland through the pines to Ķemeri, the old spa of sulphur springs and bog mud, and on to Tukums, 68 kilometres from Riga.

This was the first electric railway in Latvia, in 1950, and since December 2023 it has been worked by Vivi's yellow and grey Škoda trains. It is an everyday commuter line, and that is the pleasure of it: no booking, a ticket for a couple of euros, and in under an hour and a half you have gone from the capital past the beach and the spa to a castle town of the Livonian Order.

Every train on the line is a Škoda 16Ev, a low-floor electric unit built in Ostrava for Vivi and painted in its signal yellow, anthracite and dark grey. The first went into service on 15 December 2023, and its first run, at 10:59 from Riga's central station, was to Dubulti. By September 2024 all 32 had been delivered, and they replaced the ER2 family of electric trains, built at the Riga Carriage Works from 1962. The number on the nose, 16EV-0025 and so on, is the unit; the display above the windscreen gives the train number and where it is going.

Out of Riga

Trains leave from Rīga-Pasažieru, the central station, cross the Daugava and call at Torņakalns, on the left bank. The line then runs west through Riga's suburbs — Zasulauks, Zolitūde, Imanta — to Babīte, and crosses the Lielupe into Jūrmala. The bridge has been here since the line was built and has been destroyed twice, in the First World War and again in the Second; when it was rebuilt it was moved slightly, which is why Lielupe's wooden station building now stands well back from the track.

The resort

From Priedaine to Sloka the stations come every two or three minutes, and each has its own resort behind it. Bulduri opened with the line as Bilderingshof; Dzintari was Edinburgh until 1929; Majori, the centre, was Majorenhof, and its platform runs along the river bank. Most were given their Latvian names in 1919. Dubulti, the oldest part of Jūrmala, is where the first electric trains in Latvia terminated in 1950, and some peak-hour trains still turn there. Its station, built in 1977, was designed to recall a sea wave.

After Jaundubulti, Pumpuri, Melluži, Asari and Vaivari comes Sloka, whose station building is the original of 1877. Many trains end here.

Ķemeri and Tukums

The hourly Tukums trains, and two a day that end at Ķemeri, turn inland here through pine forest to Ķemeri, the spa, 44 kilometres from Riga. Its station was destroyed in the First World War and the present one was built in 1922. Before that war there were through trains from here to Moscow, and a tram ran from the station to the beach. The line then runs on to Tukums, which has two stations: Tukums I, the terminus of 1877, then called the East station, and Tukums II, opened in 1901 on the line to Ventspils, where the trains end.

Between 16:45 and 18:45 on weekdays three trains run as expresses, calling only at Torņakalns, Zasulauks, Zolitūde, Imanta, Bulduri, Dzintari, Majori, Dubulti, Sloka and every stop after it, and take 24 minutes to Majori.

Trains leave Riga for Jūrmala every half hour from 05:15 to 23:45, every day. Most of those on the half hour go through to Tukums II; the ones on the hour turn back at Sloka; on weekdays extra trains to Dubulti run at the morning and evening peaks. No seat is reserved and none needs to be. The times below were read from Vivi's own journey planner in October 2026, for Wednesday 4 November; Sunday 1 and Saturday 7 November ran to the same half-hourly pattern without the extras.

Riga to Tukums

The Sloka trains leave Riga on the hour from 06:00 and take 31 minutes to Majori. The 6529 at 17:45 and the 6533 at 18:45 are expresses too, on weekdays.

Tukums to Riga

Making a day of it

For the beach, any train will do: there are two an hour each way, and the last from Majori back to Riga leaves at 22:57. For Ķemeri and the bog, the 11:30 from Riga is there at 12:29, and trains back leave Ķemeri at about half past each hour until 22:30.

Times are published by the operator: Vivi · journey planner (opens in a new tab).

Vivi's fares are low and fixed by distance. Riga to Majori, in the middle of Jūrmala, is €2.30, Riga to Ķemeri €2.80 and the whole way to Tukums €3.30. A 1-day ticket, good for as many rides as you like on the day, costs three single fares: €6.90 to Majori, so it pays only if you get off and on again. Tickets are sold on Vivi's site and app, at station ticket offices and on the train, where €1 more is charged if the station's ticket office was open. ⚠️ A ticket has to be registered as soon as you board, at a validator or with the conductor.

There are no reservations or supplements on this line. Checked against Vivi's planner and fare table, October 2026.

A pass covers this line, and for it alone a pass never pays.

Interrail's table of the companies a pass is valid with in Latvia — checked in October 2026, when it carried a last updated 21 October 2026 stamp — lists Vivi as covered by both the Global Pass and the One Country Pass, with no reservation needed. Every train on this line is Vivi's, so a pass takes you all the way to Tukums.

The arithmetic is the problem. An adult Interrail Latvia Pass in second class costs €67 for three travel days within a month, €84 for four, €100 for five, €118 for six and €150 for eight; youth prices, for travellers aged 12 to 27, are €50, €63, €75, €89 and €113. A Riga–Majori return is €4.60, and even the whole line to Tukums and back is €6.60. A Vivi 1-day ticket does the same job as a pass travel day on this line for €6.90.

Hold a pass for Jūrmala only if you already carry one for a longer journey across the Baltic states; then the beach costs nothing extra.

Prices and conditions read on interrail.com (opens in a new tab) in October 2026.

Everything below is reached from a station on the line, and the times given are taken from the 11:30 from Riga, which is at Majori by 12:01, Dubulti by 12:04, Ķemeri by 12:29 and Tukums I by 12:48. With a train back every half hour from Jūrmala and every hour from Ķemeri and Tukums, any of them can be a morning or an afternoon.

They come in the order the railway meets them: the beach at Majori, the church at Dubulti, the bog beyond Ķemeri and the castle tower at Tukums.

Jūrmala is half an hour from Riga, so the line is easily a day out; the two houses below are for staying by the sea instead, both in Majori. Everything described is what each says about itself on its own site, read in October 2026. No prices, grades or star counts appear here, because none have been verified.

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