The train stops in Pasila, because after Pasila the track splits to two directions: North towards Kerava and west towards Turku. In Finland you almost always change trains when going from place A to place B. If you buy a ticket from Turku to Kouvola, you must change trains in Pasila and it is just one ticket that you get. That ticket is valid on both trains - as if they were just one train. It takes 5 minutes from Helsinki C to Pasila, so the Turku - SPb connection would be 10 minutes longer if the train didn't stop there. The Pasila station is also better suited for changing trains. Helsinki C has 19 tracks, of which 3 are in one place, 6 in another and the last 10 in some other place again. At some times Helsinki C also gets quite crowded. There are trains leaving more often than once per minute, so it's nice that those passengers who can change elsewhere, also /do/ change elsewhere. The Helsinki fair centre is next to the Pasila station, just like the ice hockey arena, some big hotels and also some other stuff. It makes the city nicer for business visitors if the train doesn't go past the business district, but actually also stops there.
The electricity system changes almost precisely at the Finnish-Russian border, there are photos of it in vaunut.org . The arrival information is triggered automatically by GPS when the train is in a certain spot near the station. The train's computer does not know that 10 seconds later the train must stop - although, with Helsinki C being one of the world's busiest such stations where the tracks end, in winter trains have to wait the extra 2 to 5 minutes almost as often as they don't. Having to wait 10 minutes for a vacant platform is very very rare, so they have not taken it into account. Also, VR is so full of stupid bureaucrats that complaining would never affect anything and everything is always /somebody else's/ job, so I don't think the arrival information will change ever. It's the same machine in all Finnish long distance trains and it's always functioned like that. I would be surprised if Sibelius hadn't had it as well, but Repin and Tolstoi of course don't/didn't, because they are not Finnish trains.
In some situations the heating of the points is very nice, but when there's a LOT of snow and when it's very cold, it only causes problems. It melts the snow a bit, but then it doesn't have enough power to keep it warm. And then the water freezes and the points can't move anywhere at all. And because there are practically no workers for cleaning the points that are supposed to be cleaned from snow automatically, the traffic is in total chaos whenever a bit of snow falls from the sky.
In Russia there are a LOT less problems with snow than elsewhere, although in many parts there is a lot more snow...
Thank you for such interesting and exhaustive information. About heating of the points. Is the power of it always constant, or it can be changed? Usually, if the frost is very strong it is no snow... Hard snow is usually fall down then the temperature is not lower then -10..-15. Maybe in the north part of Finland could be snowfalls in lower temperatures, but are railways not ready for such weather conditions?
The Helsinki fair centre is next to the Pasila station, just like the ice hockey arena, some big hotels and also some other stuff. It makes the city nicer for business visitors if the train doesn't go past the business district, but actually also stops there.
The electricity system changes almost precisely at the Finnish-Russian border, there are photos of it in vaunut.org .
The arrival information is triggered automatically by GPS when the train is in a certain spot near the station. The train's computer does not know that 10 seconds later the train must stop - although, with Helsinki C being one of the world's busiest such stations where the tracks end, in winter trains have to wait the extra 2 to 5 minutes almost as often as they don't. Having to wait 10 minutes for a vacant platform is very very rare, so they have not taken it into account. Also, VR is so full of stupid bureaucrats that complaining would never affect anything and everything is always /somebody else's/ job, so I don't think the arrival information will change ever. It's the same machine in all Finnish long distance trains and it's always functioned like that. I would be surprised if Sibelius hadn't had it as well, but Repin and Tolstoi of course don't/didn't, because they are not Finnish trains.
In some situations the heating of the points is very nice, but when there's a LOT of snow and when it's very cold, it only causes problems. It melts the snow a bit, but then it doesn't have enough power to keep it warm. And then the water freezes and the points can't move anywhere at all. And because there are practically no workers for cleaning the points that are supposed to be cleaned from snow automatically, the traffic is in total chaos whenever a bit of snow falls from the sky.
In Russia there are a LOT less problems with snow than elsewhere, although in many parts there is a lot more snow...
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About heating of the points. Is the power of it always constant, or it can be changed? Usually, if the frost is very strong it is no snow... Hard snow is usually fall down then the temperature is not lower then -10..-15. Maybe in the north part of Finland could be snowfalls in lower temperatures, but are railways not ready for such weather conditions?
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