Romanian Railways

Bucharest Life goes to Sibiu

by Craig Turp December 14, 2011 Romania

 As you may know (if you have been paying attention), we have been in Sibiu of late, researching a brand new In Your Pocket mini-guide to the city. (We should really now be writing up our notes instead of messing about here, but that’s another story). Anyway, runaway tigers aside, we liked the place a [...]

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Romanian trains in ‘going slightly faster’ shock

by Craig Turp November 30, 2011 Romania

 Researching the train schedule we still include in every issue of Bucharest (and Brasov) In Your Pocket, we couldn’t help but notice that the new Mersul Trenurilor (valid from December 12th) has a few interesting developments, including trains which actually appear to go faster than they used to. The 166 kilometres from Bucharest – Brasov [...]

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A few quick points about Romanian railways

by Craig Turp June 21, 2011 Romania

  First off, CFR’s online ticket purchasing system works better than ever. The problems that appeared when first launched back in 2009 (it threw up all sorts of weird seating plans) have been resolved, and it now – we can happily report – hands out better seating arrangements than some of the ticket clerks at [...]

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Gara de Nord: There’s more to it than onions and Carpati

by Craig Turp June 1, 2011 Bucharest

 Went to Bucharest’s Gara de Nord at the weekend (not because we were getting a train anywhere, simply for research purposes ahead of the publication of the next Bucharest In Your Pocket, which will hit the streets over the next few days).* We were more impressed than ever. Bucharest’s main railway station still gets a [...]

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Romania’s trains continue to go backwards

by Craig Turp February 9, 2011 Bucharest

 That Romania’s railways are buggered is no secret. We’ve written about how awful and slow they are many times before. The average speed of Romanian passenger trains is currently just 45kph (and we think even that modest speed is highly doubtful). That is less than half the average speed of Romanian trains in 1989 (91kph). [...]

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Wipe Busteni from the map

by Craig Turp August 2, 2010 Bucharest

 An otherwise glorious weekend at Susai, above Predeal (more about Susai later) was spoiled somewhat – as usual – by the traffic. In both directions the journey (of less than 140 kilometres) took four hours. Given that there are not currently any real alternatives*, sitting in traffic has to be accepted as part and parcel [...]

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A word or two on Brasov, and Brasov In Your Pocket

by Craig Turp March 15, 2010 Bucharest

 Every couple of months we take a hike up to Brasov, very much ground zero of Romanian tourism and simply one of the nicest places in the country. Besides the obvious fact that it is always a nice place in which to spend time, we visit Brasov for one main reason: to research the next [...]

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