I tried First Class on Finland’s TILTING high-speed train...

1:34 Another example of Finnish honesty: ”Yes, there should be an info screen here. But since the past summer was the hottest since 1937, it burned. Here is now a sheet of plywood. Sorry.”

Finnish viewer here: yes it is true these trains are notoriously unreliable in the cold (which is obviously most of the year), it is a surprising flaw to what is normally a comfy, punctual and generally nice mode of transport in Finland! However - as you mentioned - there’s little use for high speed trains here, and to be honest, travelling in this country is hard due to the lack of dual carriageways. So anything will do!

11:24 Finns are so honest its great!

That announcement of the train being late is so Finnish... :D I can almost imagine Kimi Räikkönen on the mic announcing it.

Slight correction: "Valtion Rautatiet" used to be the name and it was abreviated VR. Now it's just VR. When the organisation was turned into a state owned private company they also "changed" the name. It's VR that stands for VR.

You don't have to go to the restaurant car to order; The note says you can either send a text message to a certain number the conductor or the restaurant car attendant announces, or you just fill-in the part of the page and give it to the conductor.

3:03 the Allegro trains are largely based on the Pendolino trains and just few days ago VR announced that they will enter domestic service in 2025. (I'll guess they might just brand them as Pendolino)

The most honest announcement in railway history. Cracked me up. But not out of character for Finns. Also, your pronunciation of "Helsingin rautatieasema" wasn't half bad.

Love the sunset shots at the end 😊 And thanks for documenting the hilarious display-plyboard at the Helsinki main station, god tier dry humour at 1:35

Finnish Viewer here: I very often go with the Pendolino from Tampere To Jämsä, The train has NEVER gotten cancelled, only Once has it been replaced with IC stock, and the biggest delay ive had has been ~10 min. Maybe they were troubled ages ago, but nowadays they rarely have issues. (I do only go on that line where trains only go 120 kmh, maybe ive just had good luck)

The normal engine-hauled trains with either the Sr2 or Sr3 achieve 200km/h almost equally well. In some sections they may have to slow down to 160-180km/h for track condition reasons while the Pendolino may continue at a higher speed. On the short new Kerava-Lahti track the Pendolino can run at 220 km/h.

As a Finnish rail enthusiast, I can tell you that the pendolino goes all the way to Oulu. I highly recommend you go further north to rovaniemi or kolari with a overnight train.

Finland has the best trains in the Nordic region as far as I can notice so far.

just a note on the track gauge: finnish and russian gauge are close enough (basically within the tolerances) that russian stock can run on finnish track and finnish stock can run on russian track. the only problems with this is that there are some rare examples of finnish freight cars (probably on the wider end of the tolerance) getting stuck on some russian yards that have some stretch of track with the width in the narrower end of the tolerance. the allegro is designed for 1522 mm to avoid this rare happening. the bigger thing with allegro is that it has two electrical systems on it, allowing it to run on the vastly different electrification systems (25kVAC vs 3kVDC) so unlike the loco-hauled services that need to change the loco on the border, the allegro can just drive without stopping on the border, coasting with both pantographs down in the section between the OLEs.

I love that "When it works" :DDD

We have the same trains running in Portugal (alfa-pendular) and they are really similar. Only the shutters are operated by 2 toggle switches.

Hi, you forgot to mention that the VR android app allows you to order food to your seat. I enjoy travelling by train when I'm in Finland. UK rail operators could learn a lot from VR.

The tilting system has been switched off on all trains for years now. It was last used on the curved Helsinki-Turku track, but now the condition of the track does not even allow the full speed. The selling point of the train originally was the tilting but it never seemed to work reliably and the Finnish tracks in the main are fairly straight.

Thank you for your video! People of Turku will especially like you calling it "a major city". :)

Thanks for posting. I have traveled in Ekstra Class on both the Pendolino and double-decker trains when visiting Finland, and I must say that I probably prefer the latter. The double deckers felt nicer somehow, can't put my finger on why. It was probably the layout. In general it is a delight to travel with VR. That there might be a small "hiccup" from time to time when you travel is something that I can live with. After all, I am Swedish and used to how SJ and the Swedish Transport Administration mistreat train travel in my home country.