Romanian Railways

Bucharest Life 2009

by Craig Turp January 4, 2010 Bucharest

 A week or so late, here is Bucharest Life’s Review of the Year that was 2009. January A new government, led by Traian Basescu and Little Emil Boc, installed following parliamentary elections at the end of 2008, introduces, amongst other moves of sheer political genius, a compulsory profit tax for small companies (even those that [...]

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While its trains continue to go backwards, Romanian railways (CFR) takes a giant leap forwards

by Craig Turp October 30, 2009 Bucharest

 A while ago we reported how we had thought we must be stupid, for we could not find the ‘buy tickets online now’ button on the website of Romanian railways, CFR. As it turned out, there wasn’t one. Now, however, news reaches us that you can indeed buy Romanian train tickets online. Oh yes. Right [...]

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Romania goes off the rails

by Craig Turp September 22, 2009 Romania

 Monday’s railway accident in south-western Romania, in which an acelerat train derailed while travelling at 100km, injuring 15 people but miraculoulsy causing no fatalities, has quickly become the country’s most discussed story, with many people – political commentators and ordinary citizens alike – seeing it as the embodiment of all that has gone wrong in [...]

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Number crunching with Romanian railways

by Craig Turp June 29, 2009 Romania

 The Bucharest Life kids are off to the countryside this week for their annual peasant experience. We went to get their train tickets this morning, one each for them and one for Bucharest Life’s mother-in-law. Not for the first time this month, we turned up at the CFR agency on Strada Brezoianu and were left [...]

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Romanian trains are slow and useless

by Craig Turp June 22, 2009 Romania

 We’d not been on a Romanian train for well over a year before last Friday, when we headed off to Brasov for a research trip ahead of the imminent publication of a Brasov In Your Pocket Mini-Guide. In that time Romanian railways (CFR) appears to have gone backwards. First the good. The trains themselves are [...]

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Buying train tickets in Romania

by Craig Turp June 17, 2009 Romania

 Is not easy. Like a lunatic (or a new arrival: I mean, we’ve been here a while, so we should know what to expect…) we went to the website of Romanian railways, CFR, and tried to purchase a ticket to Brasov online. Did we succeed? Of course not. After ten minutes of trying to find [...]

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From Otopeni to Gara de Nord by train. We tried. We really tried.

by Craig Turp March 9, 2009 Bucharest

 Back from a week’s self-catering in south-eastern Sudan with little more than an elephant tusk as a souvenir, we arrived at Otopeni at the weekend to be greeted by an enormous blue sign in Romanian and (quelle surprise) correct English telling us that we could purchase train tickets to the city from the booth on [...]

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