"Ooooh, more Helsinki posts!" said no reader ever. It has gone on a bit, hasn't it? It's gone on so long that when I wrote the first post someone messaged me to say they were going to Helsinki later in the year on holiday so they were looking forward to reading about it. That person has subsequently had their holiday and come back to the UK and I'm still here writing it up. In my, defence, I've had a lot going on at home so I've not had the space to carve out two hours to yammer on about Finland. Also, I loved it all, so I wanted to give it the attention it deserved.
The point is, though the Helsinki Metro is all finished, there's some other transporty things I did in the city, so here they are, gathered together for your "pleasure".
The 15
Last year, when I travelled on the Lidingöbanan in Stockholm, I made notes as I travelled, a stream of consciousness that I put on the internet. Finding myself in Helsinki with no more Metro stations to collect, I decided to go on the 15 tram and do the same again. If you recall, this is a loop line that goes from Itäkeskus to Kellaniemi via the north of the city, entirely avoiding the middle of Helsinki. Unlike the trams in the city centre, this has been built to modern light rail standards, with its own rights of way and bridges. It takes over an hour to get from one end to the other (time via the metro: less than thirty minutes) and nobody would do it unless they're an absolute nerd. Oh look, that's me. Here are some vague thoughts, hammered into something resembling a blog post. It's ok, I don't mind if you don't read it.
Oh they are request buttons! I wasn’t sure. An old lady has pushed one to get off at Roihupelto. It seems to be a large retail park.
I went to swap seats to the little two - I’m currently on a 4 - then I spy it’s for disabled people and back away. Here I have a little table with a USB socket but I’m charging off my battery anyway.
Running down a grassy median with a lane of traffic and cycle lanes either side. Rocks and forests and now we’re on devoted track through fields. How far out are we going? This is positively rural. I thought it would be suburbs all the way. Two old ladies, one in floral, one in animal print, haven’t stopped talking since they boarded. Meanwhile across from me is a straggly bearded fat man in denim reading a comic. He puts it away and takes out another one with Donald Duck on the front, looking annoyed in a snow drift. Donald Duck, not the man.
An expanse of large glass buildings that scream business park; it is completely devoid of life until we get to Viikin tiedepuisto, a park, and suddenly there’s a shopping mall and a quaint little red cabin. Floral has got off here but animal print remains. The seats are faux yellow leather but the best part is the aircon, blowing at maximum throughout. Stops are plain with minimal seating. An entire family gets on at Viikinmäki, three generations, and they spread themselves around the hinge in the tram.
I’m still wet with sweat. My face is dry but my shirt is disgusting. I should’ve changed it. At Oulunkylä there’s a railway station, cream clapboard and looking like it’s from the 19th century: a K train passes through and pauses as we move on. A woman takes the seat opposite me but she perches on the edge so that she can face the direction of travel. There are new apartments everywhere. Is Helsinki experiencing a boom or is this the effect of the tram? Five, six storey buildings with retail at the ground floor. A building site with a crane and more being built and then some older, more 1980s blocks. The family get off and the grandad whips out a camera and starts filming the building works. What a loser. Ahem.
Across the motorway the buildings are starker and more old fashioned, though the tram has clearly caused a new quarter to be constructed. Houses now, little tin looking buildings in pastels and surrounded by thick gardens. Hämeenlinnanväylä is under a flyover, and it’s like being back in Amsterdam. Three young men in white vests board, one Black, one Asian, one white, oozing attitude and cockiness. They only last one stop. The white boy has a cigarette behind his ear.
All weather football pitches with people actually playing football in this scorching weather then we’re in a tunnel under Huopalahti station. Yellow tile at the stop then another new neighbourhood under construction.
We pause at Vihdintie - to even out the schedule no doubt - and Donald Duck packs up his comic and moves to the door to exit at the next one. A roundabout over a motorway junction, thick trees and daisies and past a McDonalds drive in which is empty even though it’s lunch time. There’s a huge hole in the ground to my left with the remnants of a building at its centre; I’m guessing an old factory.
A man got on stinking of BO and I wonder if that’s what I smell like too. He had crutches and a coat on and a thick beard but he disembarks at the next stop. So many trees, mature and high, between buildings, along side tracks, like construction is only permitted in clearings. Another tunnel, unlit, smooth. The track is hidden behind fences and we end up at Ravitie where two twelve year olds get on, one with blonde dreadlocks poking out from under his baseball cap. The road we’re passing down is silent. No cars. A single walker in athletic gear. Starting to feel hungry. May have to invest in a sandwich.
Apartment blocks and a large wide ring road. The boys are watching a video on their phone and we can all hear it, of course. Leppävaara station, under the overpass, then a stop beside the shops around the corner. An A train waits at the platform as we pass. The boys get off for the mall. It’s a popular stop. Their place is taken by a teenage girl with a badminton racket who immediately starts talking on her phone. We pause again, probably because this is such a popular stop - time to accommodate crowds.
Take a swig of Pepsi Max - the aircon is now getting to my throat. How long have I been on here? An avenue between seven story blocks, new with the tram line, the trees still young but the flower beds blossoming. Up a slope past multi storeys and office blocks. Another motorway crossed and then a stop in the middle of a forest, apparently; there doesn’t seem to be anything around and nobody boards or alights. A few small houses, white homes behind fences, parasols poking up, then back into the countryside via a dizzying bridge over a motorway. The driver puts his foot down until we stop at another one with seeming no purpose; it’s right by the motorway junction and that’s all. Still, a young woman gets off here and she doesn’t look like she’s going hiking so who knows.
Following the highway. Maari has a huge drum like building like an atrium which looks impressive but is probably just an office block. We’re in the back of Aalto University and now there are teaching blocks and laboratories but the students have seemingly all gone home for the summer. The tram pauses at a square across from the metro station - a different entrance to the one I used. The next stop is the one I disembarked at before, Otaranta, and I can get glimpses of water through the trees. Badminton girl gets off here.
Now it’s the final stretch to the terminus, four or five of us left, me the only one who came all the way - an hour and change to travel round the edge of the city. The voice cheerily announces metro station and terminus in three languages and then we stop.
My last day in Helsinki was an awkward one. I had checked out of my hotel at ten am, but my transport out of town wasn't until the evening. I had my big heavy backpack with me so I didn't want to go to a museum or something, and it was roasting hot again, so I simply rode some trains and buses and metros all day to keep myself amused. It doesn't take much.
I took a random local train from Helsinki Central and got off at Tikkurilla. This was a stroke of good fortune, as it turns out this is something of a star station. A wide glass bridge dotted with shops and facilities spans the tracks. It was big and impressive while also being incredibly practical.
Either side were shopping malls with direct connections to the station. I had a bit of a wander round, smirking gleefully to myself, then went back down to the platform for another random train north.
Yes the Swedish name for this station is Dickursby. No that isn't why I stopped here.
Kerava
My randomly selected train terminated at Kerava and I disembarked in a small town on the edge of the city. The station building was getting a lick of paint as I arrived, refreshing its soft pink woodwork. I used a wood-panelled subway under the tracks to reach the station square.
Everything about it was charming. The building sat neatly surrounded by open land; the lack of ticket barriers and fencing made it feel so much more welcoming. Buses idled outside in a small exchange, ready to take train passengers onward. There were a couple of small cafes and shops in the buildings nearby.
I hovered outside the bar, mulling whether to indulge myself with a quick pint. This is where I'm meant to go off on a rant about the price of beer in Scandinavia, but have you been to a pub in the UK lately? The A frame outside said a half litre of beer was €9, about £7.80 at today's prices. I'm writing this with a pint of lager beside me which cost £4.80 so that fabled gap between British and Finnish beer prices is considerably narrower these days. I passed on the beer in the end, because I knew I wouldn't be able to have just one, and I had a long day ahead of me.
There were, incidentally, some posters on the wall advertising an upcoming concert from Erika "Ich komme" Vikman. Europe may not have embraced her at Eurovision but clearly Finland still loved her. (Käärijä, of "Cha Cha Cha" fame, had performed at an open air festival in a Helsinki park on the previous Saturday, and I had genuinely considered going until I realised I would only know one song and the rest would be in Finnish. Also, going out on a Saturday night? No thank you).
Can I use this point to mention just how massive Finnish trains feel? When I got on the one back from Kerava it was like boarding a space ship.
Oulunkylä
If you did read that load of old nonsense about the tram journey further up the page, first of all, bless you. Secondly, you might have noticed a mention of Oulunkylä station, one of the points where the railway lines and the 15 tram cross. I decided to jump off and take a closer look at it.
There is at least some artwork at the station, in the form of a giant slanted clock at the entrance to the subway.
I'm not sure why Oulunkylä is time-obsessed, but I'm going to take a moment to pat them on the back for at least having a clock that works. It's a modern miracle.
After that there was a lot of buses, which are great; today Diamond Geezer wrote about the consultations for Superloop 13 in London and it was a reminder that Helsinki has a load of trunk route buses that do express services and they don't feel the need to hype them up as a fantastic innovation that will change the city. Helsinki's just great to get round. It's fun. Go if you can.
And yes, I did go on one of the old trams. It was rickety and noisy and packed.
So I'd taken a plane to Helsinki. I'd gone on the underground and commuter trains. I'd ridden the buses. I'd gone on the trams and the light rail. What possible form of transport was there left for me to take?
A ferry, of course.
