Căile Ferate Române (; abbreviated as the CFR) was the state railway carrier of Romania. The company was dissolved on 1 October, 1998, by splitting into several successor companies. CFR as an entity that existed from 1880 even though the first railway on current Romanian territory was opened in 1854. CFR was divided into four autonomous companies: CFR Călători, responsible for passenger services; CFR Marfă, responsible for freight transport; Compania Națională de Căi Ferate CFR, manages the infrastructure on the Romanian railway network; and Societatea Feroviară de Turism, or SFT, which manages scenic and tourist railways.
CFR was headquartered in Bucharest and had regional divisions centered in Bucharest, Brașov, Cluj-Napoca, Constanța, Craiova, Galați, Iași, and Timișoara. Its International Union of Railways code is 53-CFR.
History Railways in the nineteenth century The first railway line on Romania's present-day territory was opened on 20 August, 1854 and ran between Oravița in Banat and Baziaș, a port on the Danube. The line, which had a length of , was used solely for the transportation of coal. From 12 January, 1855, the line was operated by Imperial Royal Privileged Austrian State Railway Company, the Banat province being at that time part of the Austrian Empire. After several improvements in the following months, the line was opened to passenger traffic from 1 November 1856.
Between 1864 and 1880, several railways were constructed in the area of the Kingdom of Romania. On 1 September 1865, the English company John Trevor-Barkley began construction on the Bucharest–Giurgiu line. Commissioned by the King of Romania, the line was opened to traffic on 26 August 1869. The Bucharest-Giurgiu line was the first railway built on Romanian territory at that time (considering that the Oravița-Baziaș line was part of Austria-Hungary, even though it now lies on Romanian territory).
In September 1866, the Romanian Parliament voted for the construction of a railway, from Vârciorova in the south to Roman in the north, via Ploiești, Bucharest, Buzău, Brăila, Galați, and Tecuci, all important population centres. The price for the construction was at that time 270,000 gold francs per kilometre and was contracted to the German Strousberg consortium. The line was opened in various stages, the first stage (Ploiesti–Bucharest–Galați–Roman) being opened to traffic on 13 September 1872, while the Vârciorova–Ploiești segment was opened some time later, on 9 May 1878. The Vârciorova-Roman line was an important part of Romania's rail infrastructure because it spanned the entire Kingdom and provided an important connection for passengers and freight between several significant Wallachian and Moldavian cities.
On 10 September 1868, Bucharest's Gara de Nord (North Station) was finalised. In January 1880, the Romanian Parliament voted to transfer the ownership of the Vârciorova-Roman line from the private administration of the Strousberg consortium to state ownership, under the administration of CFR. 1880 therefore marks the start of the Căile Ferate Române institution which survives to this date. The first administration of CFR was made up of Ioan Kalinderu, Eugeniu Stătescu, and Ștefan Fălcoianu.
In May 1868, the Romanian state concluded an agreement with another German consortium, known as the "Offenheim Consortium", for the construction of several shorter railways in the region of Moldavia. The lines, which had a total length of , would run from Roman to Ițcani, from Pașcani to Iași and from Verești to Botoșani. In 1870, the Iași railway station was inaugurated and the lines were progressively opened from December 1869 to November 1871. Due to the poor management of the lines by the Offenheim Consortium, they were placed under the management of CFR in January 1889.
Meanwhile, during the Romanian War of Independence in 1877, Romania annexed the region of Dobrogea, which had previously belonged to the Ottoman Empire. The Romanian state placed under the management of CFR the Constanța–Cernavodă line, which had been opened during the Ottoman times in 1860. The Bucharest-Giurgiu line, the first line constructed in the Kingdom of Romania, was also placed under the administration of CFR during this time.
Hence, by 1889, the Romanian state became the owner of all of the lines in the Kingdom of Romania, the railway system having a total length of .
Railways in the early twentieth century
In 1918, the historical regions of Transylvania, Banat, Bassarabia, and Bucovina united with the Kingdom of Romania to form Greater Romania. As a result, all railway lines in these regions, previously under the ownership of Austria-Hungary or the Russian Empire, were placed under the administration of CFR. This event was significant for Romanian railways because it meant that the large Arad rolling stock and steel factory, previously located on Austro-Hungarian territory, was now part of Romania, and was consequently used to produce a wide range of rolling stock and locomotives for CFR.
During this time, various railway lines were "doubled" — a second set of tracks was laid alongside the original tracks to permit trains to run in opposite directions simultaneously — to increase traffic flow on those routes. The first line to be doubled was the Bucharest–Ploiești–Câmpina line, where doubling was completed in 1912. In the period between the wars, various other lines were doubled, including:
Constanța–Cernavodă (1931) Adjud–Tecuci (1933) Teiuș–Apahida (1940) Câmpina–Brașov (1941) Buzău–Mărășești (1942)
During the 1920s and 1930s CFR also bought several new locomotives and cars, embarking on a plan of widespread modernisation. Diesel traction was introduced, and the Malaxa high-speed DMUs (a modernised version of which are still in use as commuter trains in Banat) were built.
A significant event in the history of the railways was the Grivița Strike of 1933, which occurred during the Great Depression and resulted in violent clashes between railway workers and police. Also after the 1940 Treaty of Craiova, 83 kilometers of Romanian built railway infrastructure in Southern Dobruja were ceded to Bulgaria.
The Holocaust
During World War II, CFR (Romanian Railways) was involved in the transport of Jewish and Romani people from Bessarabia, Bukovina and Regat to concentration camps set up in Transnistria. In a notable example, during the Iași pogrom events, Jews were forcibly loaded onto freight cars with planks hammered in place over the windows and traveled for seven (7) days in unimaginable conditions. Many died and were gravely affected by lack of air, blistering heat, lack of water, food or medical attention. These veritable death trains arrived to their destinations, Podu Iloaiei and Călărași, with only one-fifth of their passengers alive. No official apology was released yet by CFR for their role in the Holocaust in Romania.
Railways in Communist Romania
After the war, Romania had lost Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia to the Soviet Union by July 1940, made final by the ratification of the Border agreement in 1947. Already in the Soviet sphere of influence, and after becoming a Communist republic in late December, there was significant interest to invest in expanding railways in the country. With the bulk of electrification and line doubling occurring during the communist period, it meant that railways had become to be seen as a symbol of rapid industrialisation under communist leaders Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Electrification and track doubling
The first standard gauge line to be electrified at on the Romanian railway network was the heavily used Bucharest to Brașov line that had to deal with a quite challenging mountainous section. Works on electrification started on 27 December 1960 and the first electrified segment from Brașov to Predeal, opened on 9 December 1965. Tests on this section for electrical traction have been made with several locomotives of foreign origin, but the Swedish built Rb type locomotive, has been chosen to be the future backbone of CFR electric locomotive fleet. By 20 April 1966, a further segment was electrified, from Predeal to Câmpina, with the complete electrification of the line to be completed by 16 February 1969
Before the electrification of this standard gauge line, the 1000 mm line was electrified in 1913 at 1500V DC, while at the time being in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire until 1918, when it joined Romania. Between 1918 and until the forced nationalization of 1948 when it entered the patrimony of the state and under the administration of CFR it was run as a private enterprise.
Various lines were also supplemented with double tracks to permit increased traffic, including:
Făurei - Galați (1971) Pantelimon - Cernavodă (1971) Bucharest - Roșiori - Craiova (1972) Chitila - Golești (1972) Brașov - Câmpul Libertății (1974) Adjud - Suceava (1975) Teiuș - Ilia (1978)
By the mid-1970s, steam traction disappeared completely out of mainstream use, being replaced by standardized diesel and electric locomotives and cars, most of built in Romania, at the Electroputere factory in Craiova, respectively Întreprinderea de Vagoane Arad (IVA) factory in Arad.
CFR after 1989
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which resulted in the fall of Communism, Romania was left with one of the largest, most dense and most frequently used railway networks in Europe; but at the same time having relatively outdated infrastructure. This, combined with the economic decline that Romania faced in the 1990s due to its transition to a market economy, resulted in CFR entering a period of relative decline. Several little-used routes, especially in rural areas, were cut back, and rolling stock, most of which was acquired in the 1970s, entered a period of disrepair. CFR's image, both domestically and abroad, suffered greatly, due to reports of dilapidated trains, poor service and general disarray of management.
This situation continued until the year 1998, when Societatea Națională a Căilor Ferate Române (The National Society of Romanian Railways) was split into five independently administered companies : Compania Națională de Căi Ferate "CFR" SA (National Railway Company "CFR" – dealing with infrastructure), CFR Călători (CFR Passenger Services – the operator of passenger trains), CFR Marfă (Freight transport company), CFR Gevaro (Services linked with restaurant cars) and SAAF (dealing with excess rolling stock to be sold, leased or scrapped).
Since 1989, a number of small branch lines have been closed— especially those designated for industrial purposes or having a narrow gauge. This has been generally done due to greater competition from private bus services as well as generally low passenger numbers on those lines. The narrow gauge line from Turda to Abrud, for example, could not hope to compete with the private car or bus, the journey time being just short of six and a half hours for the trip (CFR Timetable 1988, table 309). As of 2022 the Turda–Abrud journey by bus takes 2 hours and 45 minutes.