Romanian Passenger Rail Co To Launch Car Transport Service

"We are preparing the auction to buy ramps and we plan to buy six mobile ramps in a first stage, to install at the end of the year in Bucharest, Arad, Constanta and Oradea," CFR Calatori general manager Alexandru Noaptes said Friday in a seminar.

The service is destined to passengers traveling on night trains, who need their cars at the destination.

"We’re thinking of a way to include this service in ticket prices for passengers traveling in sleeping cars. It’s an additional service and it will cost more, but we’re trying to make it attractive," Noaptes said.

CFR Calatori has received requests from passengers wishing to travel to Austria or from the north of the country to the Black Sea coast in the south-east, the manager said.

The company owns two modified cars allowing the transport of nine and 12 automobiles respectively, and plans to upgrade an additional 12 train cars. Upgrades for on train car takes three weeks and costs some EUR250,000.

The price of a ramp for the loading/unloading of automobiles ranges from EUR100,000 to EUR150,000, according to estimations of CFR Calatori.