Roundtrip in Romania march 2013 part 3/3

Roundtrip in Romania march 2013 part 3/3

This is the last part of the roundtrip we made in Romania.

Part 2 ended in Vatra Dornei, so I continue from there. From Vatra Dornei Băi it's a short walk to Vatra Dornei station, and we decided to take a look there.


Vatra Dornei. We could smell the train from hundreds of meters away.


IR1833 to Cluj Napoca. In the background IR1653 from București.

The lady behind the ticket window had never seen a Fip card, so she had to call with a collegue what to do.
I've seen the computer behind the ticket window ten times, and I now know in which menu and which cathegory she had to take for the Fip reduction. I've shown an older trainticket to help her finding the correct menu.


Nice view from IR1833 between Vatra Dornei and Ilva Mică.













We had first plans to go to Mediaș, because I've seen on the internet at home, that Mediaș has a nice city center, and from there on we would like to travel in direction Sibiu via Copșa Mică.
But there was a little problem, I saw in the Mersul trenurilor that IR1634 has a stop in Apahida at 15.24h, and our train didn't had a stop there. The IR1833 will pass Apahida at 15.10h. In Cluj Napoca is alsno no connexxion between those two trains, becouse our train arrived later than de depart of the IR1634.

I showed the problem to the conductor but he did not understand our ''problem''. So a few minutes before Cluj Napoca we saw the train in direction Mediaș passing us by. The next train to Mediaș was at 22.22h in Cluj... So we changed our planns and decided to go to Alba Iulia with IR1836.
We had 2 hours to visit Cluj Napoca and eat something.






New Pesa tram. Nice design and comfortable.


Tram seen from Cetăţuia. Nice view there!

We've also seen a lot of busses from Paris in Cluj.


IR1836 to Alba Iulia.


Another train between Cluj and Războieni.


A station with a sign in 3 languages. The first one I've seen. Are there more with 3 languages in Romania?


Alba Iulia.

From there we decided to skip Mediaș, and take a bus to Sebeș Alba.


Busstation in Sebeș Alba. There are very much busses between Alba Iulia and Sebeș Alba. It's a pitty to see that trains are much less than busses. In the Sebeș we had a conversation with the lady behind the ticket window. She talked English very well, she sayd she studies it for fun. We've also seen the tableau for the switches and signals there. The employers overthere were complaining about the old stuff of the railways in Romania. And they said that busservices are killing the railways.
They were also sad thad Sebeș Alba is not at Corridor IV, so no modernization in Sebeș.




IR1622 to Sibiu.


Ex DB in Sibiu.


R2567 to Mediaș.


Sibiu city bus.


The city

Here we made a day trip to Avrig and Lacul Bâlea.


IR1726/1724. The trains made some (for me) unlogical moves around in Podu Olt. After arriving there, the 2 Desiro's from Sibiu drive 300 meters away, and waited outside the station at the arrival of IR1724 from Craiova. After that, the 2 Desiro's from Sibiu joined the 2 from Craiova. 1 from Craiova stayed at Podu Olt so there were 3 Desiro's to Brasov left. One was closed for passengers.


R2072 and the Craiova part of the train to Brasov. R2072 must be one of the trains with most stops in Romania?


Interior of it.

In Avrig, an unofficial taxi drove us up to the mountains, to the tele cabina to Lacul Bâlea.


Here we had to wait, for 10 persons to complete the group before going up. We didn't had to wait long for 10 other people. There were Jewish tourists from Israel. They were all very rich, because they had a private taxi for two weeks driving them around in Romania :shock:
But after completing the group, the man from the gondola came outside to tell us that he was going to lunch for 1,5 hours.


Finally we go up.


Cascada.


Never seen so much snow in 30 years

Back down in Avrig.


The unofficial taxi begun complaining about the high prices for petrol, and now want's the double price (comparing with the drive up) for driving us back to Avrig. We had no other choise, because there was no other car going down that day.
First he drove also very slow (much slower than up) and he asked if we need to go to Sibiu. For another 100(!!!)lei he will drive us there. Coincidentally, we just missed the train to Sibiu, so we had to wait very long.
I think the smart man in the ''taxi'' must have known the train schedule, so he drove very slow to miss it? In the hope we will give him 100 Lei more for a drive to Sibiu...

We dropped in Avrig and got a meal in the von Brukenthal restaurant behind the station.
After that, we took IR1527 to Sibiu. The ticket window was closed, so we told the conductor that we needed two tickets.
First he smiled a little and walked away. Later he showed 28,40 LEi/2 persons on a small paper. Then he crossed with his pen the 28,40 and noted: 10Lei/2 persons. After paying, the money ended up in his own pocket... :shock:

From Sibiu we continued our journey to Arad and Timișoara with this train:











Suddenly the train made an emergency break.

Because of a sheep on the railway. (you can see them in the right).




Freight corridor.


Simeria.


Change diesel---> electric.




Arad. Again another locomotive there.



From Arad station, we decided to take a tram to Aradu Nou, and continue from there to Timișoara.


CD tram.


Tram meets train.




Bad weather conditions.


Two Regio Trans trains.


The same two trains, but now combined.

Is it because of the works in Arad station, that this train start in Aradu Nou?


A Malaxa to Timișoara.


Inside Malaxa.

The journey to Timișoara was very nice. We showed some pictures of our railway jobs in Olanda to the traindriver and to the conductor, and they showed us how the Romanian signalling works. And we had a nice conversation with them.
Thank you very much.


Arrival in Timișoara. We had a conversation with another member of this forum. I didn't now that untill I was home and saw his name here also.




He showed us were to buy the tickets for the bus, and which bus we had to take for the center.


Another modern bus.

We think that Timișoara is the most modern city of Romania, with more people with money and less poverty compared to cities like Constanța or Brăila. In Timișoara I tasted some good Timisoreana beers in a beer-brewer-restaurant.

The next day, sadly, we had to go back to Netherlands with Wizzair from Timișoara to Dortmund in Germania.

It was defenitely my best holliday ever, the bad weather conditions were soon forgotten.

Next time when I'm visiting Romania, I hope it's possible to meet some people from this forum, for a conversation or to drink something. Maybee you can show me more insider tips in Romania

Greetings from Olanda, Caspar

My used train/tram/bus tickets:

Well keep the RATB card if you pass trough Bucharest, on your next trip, they'll charge you with about 1 euro for it (what? im tight on the money ) also when taking a cab is best you take those that belong to a company and have the lowest price (see on the side on the car, the price should be visible from 3 meters), some cab drivers might let their car dirty on purpose so you can't see the price to well or at all, usually they do tax double when getting out of the city, because they would probably come back empty, and best you look for a cab yourself when around stations, ignore those who offers to take you in their cab or their pal's cab, they are kinda untrustworthy.

Here is a street-view site http://www.norc.ro/street-view/ it has some other places that Google street-view doesn't have any other info you need ask on the forum.

The pictures are very interesting and is evidently that you had a nice trip in Romania. Timisoara has more than double the GDP/CAPITA (21-23.000 $ in 2011,2012) at the same like Bucharest, but Romania has ~ 9.000 $ GDP/CAPITA in 2011, 2012. Sibiu is one of the most beautiful cities in country. In this trip you saw a small part of Romania and his touristic potential.