Some more thoughts about… the railway! Living in Bucharest and coming from Bacău, a town from the Eastern part of Romania, I’ve heard, not once, how wonderful are Cluj-Napoca and Oradea, two cities from the Central – West part of the country. Except they are… not! Wait, don’t judge this from the start, because I will fully explain myself, based on a lot of experience and further research, as I am not delivering an opinion without having something solid behind it. I’ve visited Oradea twice, once in 2008 and another time in 2018. Also, to Cluj-Napoca, I’ve been countless times in 2018 and 2019, at most. So I know what I am talking about.
No more railway between Cluj-Napoca and Oradea for now
To provide more context, though, I will access the information that between Cluj-Napoca and Oradea you can’t travel by train anymore for more than one year now, and most likely the full path will be functional again, maybe in 2027 or even later – they say with a tone of optimism, it might be by end of 2026, but living in Romania, I know what this means. 🙂 Anyhow, the former slim means of transportation between the two great cities is shut down. This happens because, only in 2024, authorities thought that it would be a good idea to connect the greatest cities from Romania with a railway that is covered by… electricity. Before this, you could go only by diesel, or, maybe… by coal? Wrote some pieces of experience I had in 2021, and that was not the only one. Regardless, writing about this, I’ve discovered the topic I am most amused about.
Top speed on the Romanian railway: 160 km / h
Now, between the two cities there are 166 kilometers, almost the same distance as it is between Bucharest and Brașov, to mention another important, but quite rusty connection, even though one of the best I know in Romania. You can’t make this one-way trip in less than 2 hours and 10 minutes or so, even though we are in 2025. Given the resources and the fuss made with the re-construction of the railway from Cluj-Napoca to Oradea, I did a bit of digging. Don’t get me wrong, even if it is too late to start something you should have done maybe in 1994, it is still tempting to dream of a high-speed railway in Romania. Because for those of you that don’t know, there is no way in which a train can go beyond 160 km / h in our country, and that is the maximum speed accessible from Bucharest to Constanța, a portion which is flat as a pancake.
170 kilometers in “only”… two hours!
OK, so then, how fast will we be able to travel from Cluj-Napoca to the Hungarian border (only a few more kilometers away from Oradea – perhaps three more or so). Will we be able to travel on this portion 45 minutes? 40? Maybe 30? Who knows?! As mentioned here, a high speed train is considered the one which can go beyond 200 km / h, a speed 25% higher than what a train can achieve in Romania. In any case, given all these details, I was hoping for under one hour for sure, in any conditions. And then it hit me! Scrolling thru the information regarding this topic, I found a surreal affirmation of a politician from Cluj, Radu Moisin: “When done, we will be able to travel from Cluj-Napoca to Hungary’s border in just two hours!”
Same speed you can get between Bacău and Focșani
Wait… what? I read it over, and over again… If it is not a mistake when the guys wrote this, let me tell you that the average speed needed to make it from A to B is in this case, around 85 km / h. It is not even a joke, it is the same speed you can travel now between Bacău and Focșani for some years now. Then… all this fuss, years of reshaping a vital railroad, and the best we will have is “just two hours!” Wow! But this is the reality in Cluj-Napoca and Oradea. Basically, no important infrastructure project was delivered here in the region, and this is no exception. I mean, OK, the buildings and atmosphere it is OK, but if you go a bit West, let’s say to Debrecen or Brno, we will see that the fabulous is just as normal as it can be. Two mighty cities could not come up with a plan in which a 170 kilometers railway can help you spend only 45 minutes on the go. In 202X. Or even 203X. Isn’t that sublime? 😀
Photo source: zcj.ro
*the image shows (left hand side) some colors – those are the four portions of the railway, which are restored, and below it is the current status of each of them, in terms of progress:
• Cluj-Napoca – Aghireșu (purple on the map) – 25%;
• Aghireșu – Poieni (blue on the map) – 34%;
• Poieni – Aleșd (green on the map) – 5,10%;
• Aleșd – Hungary border (red on the map) – 10,40%.
The smallest, the more progress. Superb! My forecast would be that this super railway could be ready around 2030. Let’s see!