Roundtrip in Romania march 2013 part 2

Roundtrip in Romania march 2013 part 2

This is part 2 of the report of my roundtrip last month in Romania.
Part 1 ened with my arrival in Iaşi, so I contunue from there.



Old historical center.


A bus from Amsterdam, where they are also still in use.


One from Brussels.


Tram in Iași.

We used the busses and trams very often in Iași and other cities. Public transport in Romania is cheap for us tourists, and the freqences are high. We didn't have to wait long for a bus or tram. Transport information is sometimes very poor in Romania; if you don't know the whole city in Bucuresti for example, its difficult to understand the schedules and routes from the busses. There is no information of that at the busstops. In Iași there are route maps in every vehicle, that's a big plus.
Maybee such things will improve in the future. But for us, it wasn't a big problem, because asking the local people which bus we had to take was also working out very well.



Gara Iași.






From Iași, we made a day trip to Unheni in the Republic Moldova by train.


Desiro R1064 to Ungheni.


We didn't expact such an enormous amount of passengers on this route :shock:

It was also a strange setting in the train. Bulks of money were circulating around, women with big bags with all kind of stuff were selling their stuf to other women with the same big bags full of stuff. Even the conductor of the train was involved with big boxes with praliné chocolats. Are they selling cheap Moldovan products in Romania, or do they buy things in Romania which the don't have in the much poorer Republic Moldova?
One of the lady's was defenitely the ''leader'' of this all. She sometimes got into the cabin of the driver, and I heard her screeming:
Mecanici Plecare!



Train near the border in Ungheni Romania. With the 2 railway tracks for Russian and European width.
Are the Russian tracks used frequently today?


Desiro in Moldova.
Before entering Moldova, there were a lot of research by poliție de frontieră, and again in Moldova. It took about 1 and half hour for the last 500 meters from Ungheni in Romania to Moldova. They also want to know why we were visiting Moldova. They were very surprised to see my Dutch passport.


A train from Moskva entered the station. It has a composition of 16 coaches. :shock:
I've never seen a train with such a length.





I have heard that Bessarabia was before the war part of a greater Romania. But why are the tracks there with Russian width, and why not with European? Or had it changed when Republic of Moldova was part of Russia since WW2?




A lot of busses for such a small town.


Old tractor.


Waiting room of the suburban trainstation.




DMU. I saw also on the internet that some of these trains are in refurbishment in Pascani.


Inside the train.




Not very comfortable.


Another train arrived. It's going to Bălţi.




Publc transport bus in Ungheni.

After a few hours we go back with train to Romania. At the Romanian part of the boarder everybody had to leave the train, so the poliție de frontieră could inspect the train, and all the pessengers had to come one by one into a small container for inspection.
This took a long time. I had only some food and drink in my bag, so I was within a minute outside again. But some people with multiple bags took 5 minutes controle.



Next day, it was raining in Iaşi.



We took IR1831 to Vatra Dornei.


During the trip, the rain turned into snow. The day before, it was 18'c in Iaşi, so this was a big contrast.
But in our 6 persons compartment it was nice and warm. We shared it with one other man.




Here we had a stop for about 15 minutes. So I decided to get some warm coffee inside the station.


IR1831 in Suceava.


After Suceava the mountains were coming up. And more snow also.




Near Iacobeni.


Arriving in Vatra Dornei Bai. Probably the most beautiful station in Romania?






We had a very nice and good hotel near the trainstation in Vatra Dornei. This was the view from out of the window in the room.
This is R5701 to Ilva Mică.


Another train, the next day.

Last picture of this part:

From Vatra Dornei we went walking into the mountains around the village. We were the only one, because we don't see any other footsteps in the snow. After a nice tour, we ended up in a bar for a warm coffie, and some Ciuc.
We were wondering that the ski lift was not working, and that there were no ski'rs. It was weekend and there was plenty of snow.

This was the end of part 2 from 3 parts.

Greetings, Caspar

Citat :

I have heard that Bessarabia was before the war part of a greater Romania. But why are the tracks there with Russian width, and why not with European? Or had it changed when Republic of Moldova was part of Russia since WW2?

Basarabia was first conquered by the Russian Empire in 1812 (well... not conquered, but given by the Otomans, who already conquered it years before). The russians built the first railways, using their gauge. In 1917, the Democratic Moldavian Republic was established. It rejoined Romania one year later. The Romanian administration rebuilt all the railways into standard gauge.
In 1940, the USSR reclaimed Basarabia as its teritory and re-annex it to the USSR. The Russian also conquered a part of Bucovina (that is now part of Ukraine). In 1941, Basarabia was re-conquered by the Romanian army, under the command of Marshal Ion Antonescu (and with some helf from the German army, then allied). In 1944 the Russians invade Basarabia again, after the 23rd August, when Romania became allied to USSR, Basarabia officially becames part of the USSR (of course, the Soviets had time to re-gauge all the railways). Antonescu was later sentenced to death for war crimes and executed.

Republic of Moldova in present are aproximately 4-500,000 moldovans, russians workers in Russia and CSI which travel much with train. Rail links between Romania and R. Moldova are bad. You made very interesting and beautiful pictures.