“Unfortunately we are very far behind on capital repairs. If in 1989 CFR made capital repairs on 300 km of railway annually, these days the figure is at 10 km due to insufficient funding, which is nowhere near enough. As capital repairs are required, we impose speed restrictions,” Nicolaos said at the Business Construct Gala, organized by business daily Ziarul Financiar.
Nicolaos said passenger trains in Romania currently run at an average speed of 46 km/hour, while freight trains run at 23 km/hour.
CFR plans to complete the rehabilitation of the northern part of the fourth pan-European transport corridor by 2020 and upgrade the southern part of the corridor. The company said these works require around EUR7 billion, part of which will be covered by EU funding.
On the other hand, CFR also plans to rehabilitate train stations in county seats.
CFR said previously capital repairs required for 8,000 km of rail would cost over EUR10 billion.