București - Craiova - Timișoara - Budapest

București - Craiova - Timișoara - Budapest

Pictures of my last journey in Romania, from București to Budapest, via magistrala 900.

First București Nord, 17th mai 2014:


Regio 15073. There were a lot of passengers for this train. But 4 hours in an old German local train is a bit long... In other hand, I see that the CFR IR isn't faster than the TFC train, but has several stops less. Why is this train relative faster dan CFR trains? I also saw that on Oradea - Cluj Napoca. A TFC train with a lot of stops was almost as fast as a CFR IR with just 3 stops there...


This type of train has also served in Netherlands, just one route, from Leer (Germany) to Groningen in the 90's which was operated by DB than.

We didn't see a DH2 this time.


IR 1527 to Sibiu.


IR 1693 which, we took to Craiova. The locomotive can use a washing, the white/red paint is alsmost gray.
We had the coach in the middle, the barcoach. It's sad to see that this modern coach (2007?) was bad maintained. It is from statia domiciliu Timișoara. There was a window broken (repaired with a plastic bag), and curtains were scratched. Overall the coach made a very sad impression. There were also a lot of strange persons in the train in București, who tried to sell the new Samsung phones, parfumes etc. There were more than 10 of them, and they all smell very bad.

The train departed on time, but had several times a problem with the brakes, so we stood still...
But overall it was a fine yourney to Craiova. The large garbagedump near the tracks some kilometers outside București (Chiajna) wasn't in function anymore, so the smell there was much better than a few years ago.


Roșiori Nord, IR1522.


Landscape between Roșiori and Caracal.


I made short walk to the last coach, to make some pictures at the bridge over river Olt.   




This one isn't sharp, but we thought that the water is very high? Or is this normal.




Caracal, Regiotrans to Corabia.

We reached Craiova with 10 minutes delay, I guess it was caused with the brake proplems in București.
We stayed 2 nights in Craiova. At the second evening me made a bustour to the station after dinner, to see some trains. The station of Craiova isn't very big, when you compare it to Brasov, Timișoara etc. It was funny to hear that Craiova has an own jingle for the train announcements.   






IR 1595 arrived with -8 minutes (20.44) in Craiova. The traindriver explains to its collegues that he drove at maximum speed limits, he was very happy of his performance. He also explains that he hit a large bird, that's why the windows are broken of his cabin.


Marfa with former Eurotunnel locomotive.


I never heard a locomotive making so much noise as this one...


Next day we took this train.


The scenery was much more diverse than between București and Craiova on this section.
After Balota, the train had a speed limit of 15km/h (instead of 30) with descending to Drobeta Turnu Severin.


Between Craiova and Drobeta Turnu Severin, this was the station with the most passengers... I thougt it would be Strehaia or Filiasi, but here were about 25 passengers.


Train IR 1591 in Drobeta Turnu Severin.


Modern station, it looks a bit like a terminal of a small airport.


Not very much rail activity here.




The inmense power plant in the Danube river.


Again it looks to me that there is a high water level?


Between Drobeta Turnu Severin and Orșova.


Cerna River.


Băile Herculane. The other trains we had this trip were very empty, about 10% passengers. But in this train, IR 1691, almost every seat was occupied I think about 90% passengers.


Between Băile Herculane and Caransebeș.


The tracks seems to be in a good condition. I also saw a renovated tunnel on this section.


Lugoj.


Lugoj, IR 1838 to Iasi. It is a bit confusing to drive in the same direction in Lugoj with this train, because we go in direction of Timișoara, and this IR 1838 came from Timișoara   

We left Drobeta Turnu Severin with almost 25 minutes delay, and arrived in Timișoara Nord with just 5 minutes delay. So the traindriver did a very good job.


Old German railbusses in Timișoara Nord.





It seemed to us that Timișoara Nord is a very crowded trainstation. Perhaps the second in numbers of pessengers of the country?

Next day:



IR 12073, the MAV Traxx changed here for the Romanian loc.


R9192 To Orșova.




4 more coaches to IR 12073, making it 8 coaches. Also from the same type. I never seen a train consisting of 8 coaches, which are from the same type in Romania untill now.


Older stuff.




IR 12072, the second MAV Traxx came a few minutes later.


Due to the reconstruction works, the train made a short detour, via Glogovat. Here the train passes the Arad tramvai. The locomotiv has to lower his pantograf here. The overhead wire of the tram is lower I guess.


Glogovat.


The temperature inside train is rising, because the ventilation isn't working during the stop.







After 20 minutes, the train continue in the opposite direction to Arad.


I hope that the stationbricks will get cleaned, you can see clearly a difference in color of the bricks under/above the former roof. Arad is the first station in Romania were I arrived in 2008 for my first time, and it's nice to see the changes here. The station of Arad is almost a synonym for the way I see Romania in 6 years; things are changing fast!



I hope that Timișoara Nord will get a good station as well, the pessenger counts deserve it in my opinion.




Curtici. Why is this Malaxa pulled by a EA?


Very beautiful train. I hope there is one left for a museum when they are replaced for new trains in the future.


Curtici. I hope also that Romania enters the EU Schengen area very soon. Politics here wich says Romania and Bulgaria can't enter the Schengen because of corruption problems are very short minded. I don't like them.
When the controle of the passports is past, there could be a hugh (travel time) advantage on the Arad - Budapest route.


Works between Curtici and the border.


The border. Between here and Lőkösháza, there is just one track, and there aren't works on the Hungarian section for a second track now. Maybe a switch here (from 2 tracks to 1 track)  could be useful.


Here the train has a 15 minutes delay; some MAV coaches has to connect to our train. The train consist of 8 coaches after Lőkösháza but there were only about 50 passengers... I thought the crossing of the boarder of the MAV/CFR locs would save time, but in this case it doesn't, because there had to be some MAV coaches placed by.




Some bad sections near Szolnok.


Budapest Kelety, on the leftside our train, arrived 20 minutes late. Rightside: EN473, just departing at our arrival.


This OBB Taurus locserie, has also made test drives in the Netherlands, and had here a record of 257kmh in 2006.




Budapest Keleti looks a bit Romanian, with several Romanian locomotives, Romanian coaches.


I like the Romanian trains very much, much more than the uncomfortable MAV. But CFR has to maintain their coaches better. I hope that will improve.




One of the most beautiful large stations in Europe in my opinion.


The longes tram in the world. The same type, Siemens Combino, is also in Amsterdam, but then much shorter.


In Budapest there is a new metro line opened a few weeks ago, M4. It goes from Keleti to Budapest-Kelenföld.


Budapest-Kelenföld.


Gysev Raaberbahn Taurus.


Nice new station of the new M4. I hope the new metro in București would be as nice as this as well.




In Budapest, there were a lot of security people at the stations, but they didn't irritate you when taking pictures, which they did in București.


Old Russian style metro.

From Budapest, we flyed back to Olanda, to Rotterdam.

Here you see Delft and Den Haag, with in the right the railway between Rotterdam and Den Haag.

Hope to see Romania soon!

Caspar

Great pics, mate!

Yes, in Serbia and Bosnia there were great problems with floods in May, so that's why the Danube was so big.

If you took a morning train from Craiova to Timisoara it's very likely that it had a lot of old floks for Baile Herculane, because is a resort for old people.

The green and yellow railbusses are also Malaxa. Those and the blue-grey ones ar from WWII. The blue unit was, most probably, pulled by the EC so that de loco wouldn't go isolated.

Nice pictures!