Rantarata

Template:Rantarata Rantarata (Swedish: Kustbanan, English: Finnish Coastal Railway), is a railway between Helsinki and Turku in Finland. Its first segment, linking Turku, the capital of Finland at the time, to Karis (Karjaa), was commissioned in 1895, and work began the following year. The Turku-Karis track was opened for temporary traffic on 1 April 1899 and for permanent use on the 1 November of the same year. The second part of the Rantarata, linking Karis to Helsinki, was approved in 1897 and opened for traffic in 1902-1903.

The track was done to serve primarily in commuter traffic and was therefore laid out with many curves and as few tunnels and expensive earthworks as possible. This resulted in a series of corrections and straightening of curves, a work with began in the 1910s and continued all the way to the 1990s.

As a part of the original plan, all of the stations along the Rantarata featured wooden station houses designed by architect Bruno Granholm. Over the years many of these have been dismantled to make way for newer structures, such as Leppävaara railway station in 1999. Some of the old buildings still remain, however; Kauniainen being the most significant example.

The track between Helsinki and Kirkkonummi was electrified during the 1960s, being the first government-owned electrified railway line in Finland. Together with other improvements and maintenance, the Kirkkonummi-Karis track received its overhead lines in 1992. Coinciding with the purchase of VR's first Pendolino high-speed trains, the remaining track between Karis and Turku was electrified in 1995, completing the route.

The name Rantarata is Finnish for "coast track".