Ilmala railway station (, ) is a railway station on the

VR commuter rail VR commuter rail (, ) is a Finland, Finnish Regional rail, commuter rail system operated by VR Group, VR – the Railway company, national railway operator of Finland – under a public service obligation agreement with the Ministry of Transport ...

network located in northern

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. It is approximately north of

Helsinki Central railway station Helsinki Central Station (, ) (List of IATA-indexed railway stations, HEC) is the main station for commuter rail and long-distance trains departing from Helsinki, Finland. About 200,000 people "pass through the station" every day, half of whom ar ...

. The

VR Group VR-Group Plc (, ), commonly known as VR, is a government-owned railway company in Finland. VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 commuter rail services every day. With ...

maintains a depot north of the station. The station was opened in 1967 to serve the newly built television studios of the Finnish public broadcaster

Yle Yleisradio Oy (; ), abbreviated as Yle () (formerly styled in all uppercase until 2012), translated into English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founded in 1926. It is a joint-stock comp ...

and commercial broadcaster

MTV3 MTV3 (, ) is a Finnish commercial television channel owned and operated by the media company MTV Oy, originally launched on 13 August 1957 as a programming block, becoming its own channel on 1 January 1993. It had the biggest audience share ...

Ilmala depot

North of the Ilmala station, in

Pohjois-Pasila Pohjois-Pasila ( Finnish), Norra Böle ( Swedish) is a neighborhood in the Pasila subdivision of Helsinki, Finland. Posti Group Group (previously during 1994–2007 and during 2007–2015), trading internationally as Posti Group Corpo ...

between the two branches of the railway which go respectively to

Huopalahti Huopalahti () was a municipality during the years 1920–1945 in Uusimaa, Finland. Areas of Munkkiniemi, Lauttasaari and parts of northern Pasila were parts of Huopalahti. The area was separated from former Helsinki parish in 1920. Haaga was ...

and

Tikkurila Tikkurila (; ) is a Districts of Vantaa, district and major region of the Municipalities of Finland, municipality of Vantaa, Finland. Located in the eastern half of the Greater Helsinki, Helsinki conurbation, some north of the capital's downtow ...

, a large space is used for the VR train and bus depot (''Ilmalan varikko'') and for

Posti Posti can refer to: * ''Posti'' (1950 film), an Indian Punjabi-language film * ''Posti'' (2022 film), an Indian Punjabi-language film by Gippy Grewal * Posti Group Group (previously during 1994–2007 and during 2007–2015), trading ...

sorting centre (''Postinkeskus'' or ''Posti lajittelukeskus'') and related offices. Near the tracks, VR has built a 100,000 m³ depot to accumulate excess snow which cannot be eliminated by the snow-melting field in

Pasila Pasila (; , ) is a part of Helsinki, Finland, that is both a central-northern Subdivisions of Helsinki, neighbourhood and district, bordering the areas of Alppila to the south, the Central Park (Keskuspuisto) to the west, and Vallila to the east ...

. The depot can also melt snow with heat from the return water of the buildings' heating which uses

district heating District heating (also known as heat networks) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heater, space heating and w ...

provided by Helen.

Helsinki operating point

Ilmala is one part of the split railway operating point of Helsinki, the other parts of which include the passenger stations of

Käpylä Käpylä (; ) is a neighbourhood of Helsinki with 7,600 inhabitants. Administratively speaking, Käpylä is a part of the Vanhakaupunki district. It is located between Kumpula, Oulunkylä and Koskela. Käpylä has a terminus for route-1 of ...

and

Oulunkylä Oulunkylä (, also known as ''Ogeli'') is a suburb and a neighbourhood of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is located north from the center of the city. It has been inhabited since the 13th century. Earlier an independent municipality, it ...

, the Pasila freight and car loading stations, the Ilmala depot and the Helsinki Kivihaka crossover.

Departure tracks

Ilmala railway station has four tracks, of which two (3, 4) have platforms for passenger trains. * Track 3 is used by , and trains to Helsinki. * Track 4 is used by trains to Leppävaara, to Kirkkonummi and trains to the Helsinki Airport. Ilmala - Train Departures - Fintraffic
''junalahdot.fi''. Retrieved 2025-01-26.

Nearby landmarks

* ''Pöllölaakso'' (headquarters of

until late-2022) *

Mediatalo ( fi: Mediatalo) and Studiotalo ( fi: Studiotalo)

References

External links

Railway stations in Helsinki Pasila Railway stations in Finland opened in 1967 {{Finland-railstation-stub