However, only Lithuania has reconstructed its part of the railway line, while Poland is planning to reconstruct its part from the border with Lithuania to Bialystok only after 2020. Those wishing to have a train trip to the West will have to arm themselves with patience: trains in Poland, from the border to Suwalki, will be slower than a bike, developing a speed of only 30 km/h.
This week, representatives of Lithuania and Poland signed a Letter of Intent regarding cross-border train transport service. Polish representatives forecast that trains on this route will start operating in early 2016.
However, according Vidmantas Gudas, spokesman of Lithuanian Railways, the company expects to open the route already this December, as it had been planned previously. Poland's domestic train schedule says that, with one or two transfers, passengers will be able to travel from Kaunas and Vilnius to Krakow as of 13 December. Gudas states that all train routes will be clear just before 13 December, when new passenger train schedules should become effective.
"The new schedules will provide information to future passengers about routes from Lithuania to Poland and vice versa. There will be also information on stations where these international trains will be stopping, how much time a trip will take and the ticket prices. "Train trips should compete with bus routes," he promised.
Also, according to Lithuanian Railway's representative, the company is planning to renew train connection with Marijampole, Kalvarija, and Sestokai towns (Lithuania) from 13 December. "Passenger trains will be operating as they did prior to autumn of 2013," he stressed.
