Baltic Railway Company

The Baltic Railway Company (; ) was an initially private and later state-owned railway company in the Russian Empire which existed from 1868 to 1907.

The railway company owned and operated a number of railway lines primarily in the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire. The company's main line connected the Baltic ports of Reval (now Tallinn) and Baltischport (now Paldiski) with the Russian capital Saint Petersburg as well as the Saint Petersburg–Moscow railway. Today, the railway lines of the company are located in Estonia and Latvia, as well as in the Russian oblasts of Leningrad and Pskov.

History

The opening of the railway between Saint Petersburg and Pavlovsk in 1836, the first public railway in Russia, led to a growing interest in building new railways in the Russian Empire. The first plan to build a railway between Saint Petersburg and Estonia was already presented in 1845, but the construction could not be financed at that time.

On 23 November 1868, the Baltic Railway Society was officially founded in Saint Petersburg. The main shareholders were Baltic-German Estonian landowners and Reval merchants, and the head of the Estonian Knighthood, Baron , was elected as its first president.

In 1893, the company was acquired by the Russian state and merged with the . In 1907, the combined Baltic and Pskov–Riga Railways, became part of the along with the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway.

Baltic Railway Company

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