Vilnius to Riga

At Riga, the passengers going on to Estonia do not change trains. The three-car diesel that left Vilnius at 07:04 stands at the platform for nineteen minutes, Latvian staff from the operator Vivi take over on board, and at 11:53 it leaves again as a Latvian train, for Sigulda, Cēsis, Valmiera and Valga on the Estonian border. On the 43 kilometres into Riga from Jelgava it is the other way round: LTG Link sells no ticket between the two, so the Lithuanian train carries nobody who boarded in Latvia until it has reached the capital.

A direct train between Vilnius and Riga last ran in January 2004. LTG Link brought one back on 27 December 2023, when the first departure left Vilnius full, with Lithuania's prime minister and transport minister aboard, and about 62,000 people travelled on it in its first year. In December 2024 Vivi retimed its Riga–Valga train to meet it, in January 2025 Elron's train from Valga to Tartu and Tallinn followed, and since February 2025 the same unit has run through from Vilnius to Valga.

Today there is one train a day each way, 348 kilometres in about four and a half hours, by way of Šiauliai and Jelgava. A single ticket on LTG Link's site covers the whole run to Tallinn, with one change, across the platform at Valga.

The train is a PESA 730ML, a three-car diesel unit from the Polish builder Pesa of Bydgoszcz. Lithuania bought seven, delivered from 2016, and each carries a name: Birutė, Vytis, Jonas Karolis Chodkevičius, Jogaila, Žygimantas Augustas, Karalius Mindaugas, and Baltijos kelias, the Baltic Way. There are first and second class, Wi-Fi, air-conditioning, a quiet zone and spaces for bicycles, and every seat is reserved as far as Riga.

Vilnius to Šiauliai

For its first 212 kilometres the train follows the main line to the coast, the same way as the trains from Vilnius to Klaipėda: out to Kaišiadorys, then north through Jonava and Kėdainiai, stops added after the service began, to Radviliškis and Šiauliai, reached at 09:45.

Across the border

North of Šiauliai the line to Latvia is a railway the German army built in 1916, during the First World War, to join Šiauliai to Jelgava, then called Mitau. Russian prisoners of war and local people laid it, across twenty bridges with a combined length of 2.1 kilometres. After the war 59 kilometres of it fell in Lithuania and 33 in Latvia. Joniškis, the last stop in Lithuania, became a border station, and from February 1921 an international train ran this way from Riga to Kaunas and on to Berlin, under the name Nord Express from 1932.

On the Latvian side the train runs without stopping through Meitene, Latvia's border station. Its building opened on 15 December 1923, with two wall paintings of 1935 by Kārlis Melbārzdis, The Gauja Valley and Latvian Fields. Soviet bombing wrecked the building in 1944; it was rebuilt only in part in 1950, and in 1952 an artist sent from Leningrad repainted the valley as a Siberian river with young pioneers and added a collective farm to the fields.

Jelgava and Riga

Jelgava is the first stop in Latvia, 43 kilometres short of Riga. Its station was built in 1868 with the line from Riga, opened on 21 November that year by a private company, and it is the second-largest station building in Latvia. The last stretch crosses the Daugava on the Railway Bridge of 1914 into Rīga-Pasažieru, the central station.

On to Valga, Tartu and Tallinn

Passengers for Estonia stay in their seats. The train leaves Riga at 11:53 as Vivi's 874, calls at Sigulda, Cēsis and Valmiera — the line described in Riga to Sigulda and Valga — and reaches Valga at 14:13. There Elron's train waits on the same platform for Tartu, at 15:40, and on to Tallinn, at 18:15. Coming south, Elron's 10:22 from Tallinn leaves Tartu at 13:05 and meets Vivi's 873, which leaves Valga at 14:25 and becomes the 16:55 from Riga to Vilnius.

One train runs each way every day, with no weekend variation, and every seat between Vilnius and Riga is reserved. The times below were read from LTG Link's own booking system in October 2026, for travel in November.

Vilnius to Riga

From 1 December the train leaves Vilnius at 07:00 and still reaches Riga at 11:34, and the return reaches Vilnius at 21:26. Dates from 13 December were not yet on sale when the times were read.

Riga to Vilnius

Both trains also call at Jonava and Radviliškis. The journey takes 4 hours 30 minutes north and 4 hours 33 minutes south. No tickets are sold between Jelgava and Riga.

Through to Tallinn

The northbound train stays the same as far as Valga, where Elron's train waits across the platform; southbound it is the other way round. The through tickets are a small allocation in second class and can sell out days ahead.

Times are published by the operator: LTG Link · tickets and timetables (opens in a new tab).

Vilnius to Riga costs €24 in second class and €34 in first. That is the international fare, the same as on the first day in December 2023: the half fares LTG Link is charging until 31 December 2026 apply to domestic journeys only, so a ticket to a Lithuanian stop on the way, such as Šiauliai at €9.10, is halved and a ticket into Latvia is not. Children from 6 to 16 pay half; one child under 6 per adult travels free without a seat of its own. A bicycle costs €10.

A through ticket from Vilnius to Tallinn costs €39, to Tartu €28.20, second class only, with the change at Valga included. Tickets are sold on ltglink.lt and the LTG Link app, at ticket machines in Lithuanian stations, and on board. Checked against LTG Link, October 2026.

A pass covers this train, but it does not pay for this journey alone.

Interrail's table of the companies a pass is valid with — checked in October 2026, when it carried a last updated 21 October 2026 stamp — lists LTG Link's Riga–Vilnius–Valga train under Latvia as covered by a Global Pass, and by a Latvia One Country Pass for its domestic part only, with a reservation compulsory. Under Estonia it lists the whole Tallinn–Valga–Riga–Vilnius service, again for a Global Pass, and for an Estonia pass on its domestic part. LTG Link's own page for pass holders names Vilnius–Riga as a route where a pass holder must book a seat, in first or second class, for €5.

An adult Interrail Global Pass in second class costs €283 for four travel days within a month, €318 for five and €381 for seven; for travellers aged 12 to 27 it is €212, €239 and €286. A second-class Vilnius–Riga return costs €48, and the through ticket to Tallinn €39 each way.

Hold a pass for this train only as part of a longer trip across the Baltic states and beyond, where a Global Pass is the one to carry.

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

The times below are taken from the 07:04 from Vilnius, train 889, which is at Joniškis by 10:22, Jelgava by 10:57 and Riga by 11:34.

They come in the order the railway meets them: the old town the train leaves from, two synagogues on the market square of the last town in Lithuania, the Dukes of Courland's palace at Jelgava, and at the end of the line the cathedral of Old Riga and the Art Nouveau streets beyond it.

The train reaches Riga at 11:34, early enough for an afternoon in the old town, and the return leaves at 16:55, so the house below is for a night at the far end, a few streets from the cathedral. Everything described is what it says about itself on its own site, read in October 2026. No price, grade or star count appears here, because none has been verified.

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