Länsirata Oy (West Rail) organized a public tender for updating the Lohja-Salo railway plan to partly single track. The winner of the tender was the Sweco Finland Oy - Sitowise Oy consortium, with which a contract for the execution of the updating work was signed on August 21, 2025. The consortium will carry out both sub-tasks of the tender request. The updating work will begin immediately after the signing of the contract and will continue until summer 2027.

– We are pleased to have Sweco and Sitowise consortium carry out the update work of our track plan. We are impressed by their strong expertise, and their proposal excellently met the goals and expectations we set for the project. We look forward to the collaboration and its tangible start, commented Raimo Kaunismäki, Project Manager of Länsirata Oy regarding the agreement.

– The West Rail is a project that supports both the general expansion of the growth triangle of Helsinki-Tampere-Turku and the growth opportunities of the cities along its route. It is wonderful to continue planning such a socially significant project. Although we are not yet at the point of implementing the project, it is probably time to reiterate an old truth: every million invested in infrastructure provides employment for over a dozen Finns and returns a third in tax revenues alone, not to mention its impact as a seed for economic growth, says Jannis Mikkola, Business director at Sitowise.

Raimo Kaunismäki, Jannis Mikkola, Juho Siipo ja Pekka Ottavainen Länsiradan Lohja-Salo ratasuunnitelman sopimuksen allekirjoitustilaisuudessa.
Raimo Kaunismäki, Jannis Mikkola, Juho Siipo, and Pekka Ottavainen at the contract signing ceremony.

– It is wonderful to continue the collaboration with Länsirata Oy and Sitowise. We are already familiar with the project from its earlier stages, and this cooperation allows for the update work to be carried out in accordance with the client's objectives by leveraging the diverse expertise of the consortium, says Juho Siipo, Director of Infra and Traffic at Sweco.

Cost savings without impacts on the project schedule or overall benefits

The update of the Lohja-Salo railway plan is being carried out in accordance with the decision made by the owners of the Länsirata in 2023. The purpose of updating the plan is to achieve cost savings through partial single-tracking. It was already established during the decision-making phase that the change will not affect the project's schedule or overall benefits.

– It is great that we can ensure additional cost savings for the project and its owners on the rail section between Lohja and Salo through the update of the track plan. The update work is related to the decisions made at the owners' general meeting at the end of 2023, where the owners unanimously decided that as part of the planning project, a partially single-track implementation option between Lohja and Salo will be examined, says Pekka Ottavainen, CEO of Länsirata Oy.

The update work will not affect the overall schedule of the project, and for the first construction phase, Länsirata Oy is ready to proceed during the year 2025.