Quite a bold statement, especially for someone who has a Finnish train-related chaos story and lived in Switzerland. I do like Swiss trains – somehow they’re almost invariably timed so that you can quickly get comfortably interchange everywhere, they’re clean, quiet, efficient and the tickets are easy – any given ticket is for a journey between two stations, to be used any time on the date on the ticket and you just have to make sure you’re in the correct class. But Finnish trains have a little extra.
Let’s just tick off my train chaos. In 2014, I was taking the train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. The departure board told me which platform but the train at that platform was actually out of service and going to the depot, my train arriving once it was clear. Half a dozen of us got stuck on this out of service train. We went through the train wash, into the depot at Pasila, were stored temporarily in a cupboard, took a taxi back to Pasila where our tickets were reissued and we continued our journey from its second stop four hours later than planned. In February, while waiting for my train to Turku, I realised that I recognised the next platform as the scene of that long-ago crime, where stood a train with “closed” in English and Finnish in bright LCD letters on the front and along the side. Nice to know I couldn’t make the same mistake again.
So, to this year. Taking the train to Turku. Because I’m old-fashioned, I’d bought my tickets from a machine. Finnish trains – at least the long-ish distance ones – give you a ticket for a particular train at a particular time and a designated seat. If you’re paying attention, which I wasn’t, you can choose that seat. I got lucky. My train was a double decker and it gave me an upstairs seat, next to a window, facing backwards. I know I’m in the minority preferring to travel backwards but that’s what I’m used to. I got on the correct train, in the correct carriage and found my seat. All good.
Now, here’s where the magic happens. Because it’s 2026, you can also download the rail company’s app and buy your train tickets through it. But if you buy your ticket from a machine at the station, it comes with an order number and a reference number (this is the payment ID), among other numbers printed at the bottom and you can use them to import your paper ticket into the app!
Why is this good?
Well, for one thing, you can track your train. You can see what the next station is and when and which track it arrives on. You can see what time you’re due into your own stop and how much travel time is remaining. You can follow the train – and any other train – on the map. If you’re not sure where you are or where you’re going and you can’t make sense of the overhead display boards or announcements, it’s all right here on the app in real time, and there’s free wifi on the train that actually works.
For another thing, you can make amendments to your ticket. You can change to a different train, although that may incur a fee. You can see where your seat is and change it – you can see whether your assigned seat is upstairs or downstairs, window or aisle and whether the one next to you is occupied. You can even book out the seat next to yours for a bit of peace. You can order a meal to your seat from the restaurant car or you can pre-order takeaway coffee.
The other thing you can do with the app is activate your ticket. This opens 10-15 minutes before departure and is open until about ten minutes in. If your ticket is activated, the conductor/guard/train official doesn’t need to ask you for your ticket to check it, which is a system only introverted Finland would bother to invent. If you have a paper ticket or you haven’t activated the ticket in the app, they’ll scan the QR code, so it’s not a problem if you don’t do it but if you’re looking to have a nap or get on with some work without being disturbed, activating the ticket will achieve this nicely.
Speakimg of changing seats, you can also upgrade to the assorted Ekstra compartments – this is the Finnish equivalent of first class, so there’s that extra fee again. Price is going to depend on exactly which of the many Ekstra options you choose and the distance you’re travelling so I can’t really tell you how much it’ll cost. Ekstra Plus includes the option of a single seat, an ordinary, if slightly more spacious, set of four around a table or a private six-seat compartment, there’s a hot drinks station you can help yourself to and because it’s at the end of the train, there’s no one walking through. Ekstra Quiet has the drinks station and is, as the name suggests, extra quiet – not that you really need to pay to upgrade to get quiet on a train in Finland. Ekstra Relaxed offers you a 12-seater mobile conference room as well as 4-seater compartments.
My trip out to Turku was perfectly pleasant, in a seat randomly assigned that I would have chosen myself if I’d realised that was an option. Finnish trains are generally pretty quiet. I didn’t get the impression that huge numbers of tourists take any trains in Finland except the Santa sleeper train, so the quiet nature of the Finns pervades. It’s not silent but no one’s bellowing or drinking cans of beer or striking up unwanted conversations with strangers like they are back home. Finns are not the sort of people who watch TikTok out loud on trains. If it’s quieter in Ekstra, it’s only because there are fewer people there. It’s already quiet! And it was a beautiful journey – snow-covered countryside under blue sky and every 45 minutes or so, a deer standing in a field staring at the passing train. Honestly, who needs TikTok when you’ve got scenery like this?
Every seat, or at least every pair of seats, has a charging point. If you’re not sitting around a table, there are fold-down tables, like on a plane but so much bigger. There are screens in the ceiling over the aisle alternating information about the train with information about your journey. Fun fact: the next station is the one at the bottom of the screen and the ultimate destination is the one right at the top, which is the opposite of what I’d expect to see. I’d discovered that on the commuter train on the way into Helsinki from the airport, so by the time I was on my way to Turku, I understood that and there was no confusion but if you haven’t come across it, that’s how it works in Finland. It was all a very comfortable and easy journey. If you find train travel a bit stressful, Finland is a great place to do it calmly.
But on the way back, I looked at the app and discovered that there was someone sitting in the seat next to me. There were no seats left on the entire train with no one next to them, and especially there were no window seats – this was a single decker, so only half the capacity. Then I realised something. There are solo seats in Ekstra and because I’ve imported my ticket, I can select one and upgrade. And then, as well as having a bit of space on my journey back to Helsinki, I can write a blog post about the journey itself!
So, to upgrade to a single seat in Ekstra Calm between Turku and Helsinki, a journey of a little under two hours, cost €19.90 on top of the €21.40 I’d already paid for an ordinary seat which more or less doubles the price, which is a lot more expensive than the equivalent upgrade would be back home. If I get the train to London at 12:41 today, a journey of 2 hours and 8 minutes, it’s £33.10 in standard class and £49.70 in 1st class, which is just seats in a different colour with a glass door separating the rich folks from the plebs. No drinks, no quiet, no extra-comfy seats. Finland gives us a 93% increase vs the UK’s 50% increase but on the other hand, Finland was cheaper in the first place and better.
Honestly, my favourite thing about Ekstra was having access to the hot drink station. Rather than sit in the waiting room or outside in the cold of Turku, I boarded the train half an hour before it departed. I was on my second cup of hot chocolate by the time the train started to move. It was very cold – consider it medicinal. There are insulated jugs of coffee and hot water, sachets of tea and hot chocolate, long life milk in pyramidal single servings, sugar & sweeteners of assorted kind and wooden stirring sticks. There were also bottles of water if you really want them.
As for quiet, my compartment had four or five single seats along the right-hand side and two seats of four seats around table opposite. I suppose that’s only half the compartment but the drinks station felt like a divider. Anyway, although four seats were marked as occupied on the app, there were actually only two of us in there. The ordinary seat that morning had been quiet and peaceful but now it was silent. Silence “that oppresses like cathedral tunes”. Almost the sort of silence that makes you not want to move in case your clothes rustle.
But it’s quite comfortable! I’ve got a nice big seat with no possibility of anyone sitting next to me. There’s no one prattling on for a hundred miles. I can go and help myself to another cup of hot chocolate whenever I want (technically, refill the paper cup I’ve already got). I have my own window but this is a single decker so I don’t have the raised upstairs view over walls and hedges that I had in the morning.
Would I book Ekstra again? I’m not saying no but I’m also not necessarily say yes. Dependent on how much it would cost to upgrade and how busy standard class was, I’d consider it. I like that I have the option and that it’s so easy to do. But Finland being what it is, there’s not necessarily that much to improve on from standard class.
I Am A Polar Bear 