ROMANIA: A Chinese-built CRRC Sifang train began carrying passengers between Bucharest and Brașov on 19 August, operated by private company Astra Trans Carpatic. It is the first Chinese-built train type authorised for commercial passenger service in Romania.
The train runs two return trips a day, leaving Bucharest at 07:44 and 15:40 for a journey of about two and a half hours on the Prahova Valley line. The last service of the day reaches Bucharest at 21:04. The unit is rated for 160 km/h.
CRRC staff are travelling on board during the first weeks to train Romanian drivers, the operator said. A demonstration run on 18 August was attended by Valer Blidar, owner of the Arad-based Astra group, and Marian-Mihail Călin, the operator’s director of development and strategy.
Authorisation
Romania’s rail safety authority ASFR issued type and placing-in-service authorisations for the unit in June to Astra Vagoane Călători, the rolling stock manufacturer in the same group. The train was shipped to the port of Constanța in 2024 and has since completed test running on the Romanian network.
Astra says the unit is fully compliant with EU technical specifications for interoperability and carries two signalling systems that switch automatically according to the line.
Procurement background
The train was bought directly by Astra rather than procured through a public tender. A consortium of CRRC Sifang and Astra Vagoane Călători was excluded from a 2021 tender by the Romanian Railway Reform Authority for 20, later 37, inter-regional trains, after the government issued an emergency ordinance barring bidders from countries without a public procurement agreement with Romania.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal annulled the exclusion in a final ruling on 11 July 2025, following a referral to the Court of Justice of the EU. That contract went to Alstom.
Other CRRC types already carry passengers in the EU. Westbahn’s four leased double-deck units received authorisation from the EU Agency for Railways in November 2025 and entered service in Austria on 12 November, and CRRC Sirius units have run on a Czech regional line since February 2024. Hungary is preparing an inter-city fleet tender worth HUF 450bn (about EUR 1.2bn) under its ten-year rail plan.
