Rail transport in Estonia Rail transport in Estonia The rail transport system in Estonia consists of about of railway lines, of which are currently in public use. The infrastructure of the railway network is mostly owned by the state and is regulated and surveyed by the Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority (). All public railways in Estonia are (Russian gauge), the same as in Russia, Belarus, Latvia, and Lithuania. The gauge used in Estonia is also compatible with Finland's gauge. Sometimes it is defined to be (see Rail gauge in Estonia), for example when buying track maintenance or vehicles from Finland. Railways in Estonia today
Languages of Estonia residing in the coastal areas and islands of what is now western and northern Estonia. The beginning of the continuous settlement of Estonian Swedes in these areas (known as "Aiboland") dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries, when their Swedish-speaking ancestors arrived in Estonia from what is now Sweden and Finland. Almost all of Estonia's Swedish-speaking minority fled to Sweden during World War II, and only the descendants of a few individuals who opted to stay are permanently resident in Estonia today. The Estonian Sign Language (ESL, ) is the national sign language of Estonia. In 1998 there were