Romania’s trains are notoriously slow, and lack 21st century comforts due to a lack of investment and upkeep.
Some of the rail network hasn’t been overhauled for decades and trains run slower than they did in the communist era.
But slowly things are changing as the train company seeks to modernize the rail network.
Romanian state-owned railway operator CFR announced Thursday it plans to invest 26 million lei, which is about 5.3 million euros, to overhaul a railway line in eastern Romania .
Works on the 19 kilometer railway section between Cilibia Buzau county and Faurei in the neighboring Braila county are expected to take 250 days, CFR said in a press release Thursday.
Following the overhaul, trains will be able to run at 120 kilometers hour an hour on that stretch. They currently reach a maximum of about 80 kilometers an hour.
The state will invest in the improvements which aim to ”improve the conditions of travel and comfort by raising the speed of passenger trains to 120 kph.”
Last month, CFR launched two tenders worth a total 22.1 million lei for repairs of railway infrastructure in the counties of Sibiu and Harghita in central Romania.
The commercial railway network is about 11,000 kilometers long (the eighth largest in the EU) and there are more than 1,000 stations.
Only 37 % of the network is electrified compared to an average of 54 % across the EU.
Trains run at a maximum of 50 km/h on almost a third of the network and to 80km/h on another 40%, the European Commission study said.
