We are FCC Nº26

The first railway line in Romania was inaugurated in 1869, linking the capital Bucharest with Giurgiu, although the first railway, on the current Romanian territory, was inaugurated in 1854, between Oraviţa and Baziaş, in the Banat, a region which at that time was under the administration of the Austrian Empire and became part of Romania after the First World War. After the Great War, the Kingdom of Romania received the regions of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina, forming Greater Romania, which meant that part of the railway lines controlled by the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires be- came part of the Romanian National Railway Company (CFR), as well as the large railway construction and iron and steel works in Arad, which made it possible to build new tracks and locomotives. After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Romania had one of the largest and densest networks in Europe, although its infrastructure was rather obsolete. During the following years, lack of maintenance and investment led to the deterioration of the railway network. As an example, the current speed of goods trains is 15 -17 km/h. At the beginning of 2000, Romania embarked on a programme of modernisation of infrastructure, infrastructure automation and rolling stock. The “National Plan for Reconstruction and Resilience”, approved in 2021, is currently being implemen- ted, with a budget of 5 billion euros for the improvement of rail transport. The managing and operating entity of the railway network in Romania is CFR which, with 143 years of history, has one of the most extensive networks in Europe with almost 11,000 ki- lometres of operational lines, mostly standard gauge, 969 sta - tions, around 200 tunnels and more than 6,000 bridges. Ro- manian railways are part of the European Corridors IV and IX. The history of railways in Romania In addition, renovation of 10 bridges and 91 drainage works, two tunnels in Şuncuiuș and Peștera, construc - tion of two new overpasses and mo- dernisation of 31 level crossings will be carried out. Both projects include signalling wor- ks with the implementation of the ERTMS system (ETCS level 2 and GSM-R) along the entire route, as well as electrification works and mo - dernisation of the railway infrastruc- ture and superstructure. After the completion of the projects, passenger trains will be able to run at a maximum speed of 160 km/h, and goods trains at 120 km/h. The company is currently executing three works on Pan-European Corri- dor IV: Section 3, Gurasada-Sime- ria, Section 2a and Section 2b with a cumulative length of 119 kilometres. These works are currently more than 80% complete and are aimed at in- creasing the commercial speed to 160 km/h. Pan-European Corridor IV connects Dresden with Istanbul. FCC Construcción has been execu- ting railway contracts in Romania for CFR since 2012 without interruption. After completion of the projects, passenger trains will be able to run at a maximum speed of 160 km/h, and goods trains at 120 km/h VIDEO T H E P L A C E 58