Romania should charge French rolling stock manufacturer Alstom penalties of tens of millions of euros for the two-year delay in the delivery of the 37 contracted Coradia Stream trains, president of the Railway Reform Authority (ARF) Mihai Barbu declared in an interview with AGERPRES. He added that a subsequently sealed addendum provides for January 2026 as the new extended deadline, and voiced hopes that Alstom will this time honor its word and hand over all the rolling stock contracted with the Railway Reform Authority

Barbu specified that, on the other hand, Polish trains and trams manufacturer PESA will deliver 14 trains to Romania this year, and the first will start service at the beginning of 2026, operated by passenger public service operator CFR Calatori. The distribution of the batch of 62 PESA trains for regional and suburban service will be as follows: CFR Calatori - 34; Regio Calatori - six; Transferoviar Calatori - seven, Interregional Calatori - eight, Astra Trans Carpatic - four, Softrans - three, he said.

The ARF head stressed that serious investments are necessary in the sector in order to 'bring both passengers and freight back to railway transport', given that so far, 500 kilometers of highway and expressway have been built under the Large Infrastructure Operational Program (POIM), but only 170 kilometers of railway have been rehabilitated and 'not a single yard of new railway has been laid'.

Tackling complaints by CFR Calatori that the subsidy received by the company is just RON 33 per train-km, below the agreed RON 47.4 per train-km, Barbu said that CFR Calatori has already overshot its due amount, and that the effective compensation paid to the passenger public service operator was RON 2.13 billion, taken from the Government Reserve Fund and in advance from future allocations.

'As the president of the Railway Reform Authority, I must make sure that all the passenger rail companies receive their money according to the documents they send to the Authority, and no more. So, the difference between eligible income, eligible expenses and reasonable profit must translate in compensation. But, I emphasize once again, the reasonable approach is that these expenses and revenues are made for the public passenger transport service,' the ARF official said.

Also, he noted that there should be a sensible approach in this regard, because this year - as per Eurostat reports - train fares in Romania have increased by 13%, the largest advance in the European Union, where the average was 4%. 'This year, CFR Calatori, without having the approval of the Railway Reform Authority, took out of service around 200 trains, which amounts to around 3 million kilometers. So, they will travel 3 million km less and, under these circumstances, I think it is not fair for them to ask for a higher compensation.'

Moreover, looking at the budget of CFR Calatori, Barbu noted that remuneration expenditures for the company's management - namely the seven members of the Board of Directors, the general director and the financial director - increased this year by RON 3.5 million, which means about RON 32,000 per month for each. 'In other words, we have money for the bosses, but keep the purse tight for the workers. (...) Under these circumstances, I repeat myself, I don't think it's reasonable to ask the Railway Reform Authority for more money,' Barbu said.

He considers that the ARF procurement plan needs to be correlated with the rehabilitation of the country's railway network, because buying the most efficient trains doesn't help if there are still stretches where the travel speed is 40 km/h. 'Things must be changed in depth. We need to rehabilitate the railway, because we need to increase the cruising speed, and here let me tell you that the danger in the coming period resides in the transfer of passengers and freight from the railway to the road, which leads to congestion and pollution,' Barbu cautioned.

'We need to take action and bring both passengers and freight back to railway transport. For this we need to rehabilitate the railway, and I would give you this example: under the POIM alone, around 500 km of new highway and expressway were built. And also under POIM, just 170 km of railway were rehabilitated. Rehabilitated. Not a single yard of new railway was laid. And then, how can we increase the trains' travel speed if we don't build new railways?,' he inquired.

'In the coming period we must focus on railway rehabilitation and on allocating money for such projects, on the one hand. On the other hand, we must spend the money we have, because there is a lot of money allocated for the railway, for railway modernization that was left unspent. And here we must be careful, because as I told you: we are buying new rolling stock, we are buying new, marvelous trains, but they will run at 40 km/h on certain stretches.'

As for speeding up and expanding works on the railway infrastructure, Barbu said that, with certain railway areas currently under construction, the passenger transport operators are bridging those sections by bus, which is not normal. 'Taking the passengers to road transport again, taking them off the railway is one of my concerns, another one is that these railway operators are paid by the Romanian state a certain price per railway kilometer, but in fact they move the passengers by bus, at a price four times lower.'

Tackling yet another aspect, the ARF head said that 'compensation is provided for all the routes in Romania - whether they are profitable or not. (...) At some point, the profitable routes must become commercial and compensation should be paid only for those that are not profitable and can never be - because there are not many travelers there.'

'Yet the concern of all railway companies must be this, to bring passengers to the railway, because thus they also collect more money from tickets. We must bring passengers from road to railway transport, because I tell you from my own experience: it is much easier to travel by train from Bucharest to Brasov than by car. It is much cheaper and also much more comfortable for everyone. But for this, the trains must be equipped with proper amenities,' Barbu concluded. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Oana Tilica; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi))