Romania's Railways under Transition: Reorganisation Rehabilitation and Regional Development

David Turnock

Abstract

The paper attempts a review of the Romanian Railwaysduring transition. The first half of the paper considers the fall intraffic and the resulting financial problems which have made itdifficult to maintain the system and continue with any development.The organisation has been restructured so that separatefreight and passenger companies can now concentrate on specificbusiness and compete on the market while the infrastructurecompany is catching up on the maintenance backlog andis proceeding slowly with further electrification. The secondsection concentrates on the European project for high-speedtransport corridors and especially the interest of Romania'srailways in Corridors Four and Nine. Although there have beendelays over several years in starting the complex work of upgrading,contracts for the first phase of Corridor Four (Bucharest-Ctimpina) have now been signed, a new passenger coachrunning 200 km/his in service and locomotive upgrades are underway.The significance of all this for regional developmentlies in the fact that remarkably little of the 1989 network hasbeen closed and the system has remained basically intact tocope with the upswing in the economy that has taken placefrom 2000 onwards. The high-speed corridors, which include anumber of variants, comprise suffteient axes to afford directlinks with the economic macro regions while additional projectsare on hand to improve cohesion on the eastern frontier wherethe most serious development challenges exist.