WestiWim
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 2 years ago
I intend to travel from Istanbul to Bucarest bij train. I found out that the nighttrain needs more then 20 hours time for that trip.
It is also possible to travel by bus. That trip in a couch only needs 11 hours.
Can anyone explain to me the difference in time between bus and train
nltrainer
Traveller
1334 comments
Sorry, alas, NOT possible for now and noone knows when, if ever, again. The turks have started rebuilding/renovating long overdue and making it more HiSpeedy their stretch. Plus that the line inside RO from bridge to Bucur, taken by this INTern. route, was destroyed years ago and now maybe, who knows, be reinstated as EU now has some money to subsidize it. Demand to travel to IST-often used for shopping trips by people in balkan, has also dropped a lot since they came into EU and the current doldrums of TR economy.
The roads=motorway=autobahn has been much improved there and is also more direct as rails. Plus that most of those rails, dating from communist jolly workers times are in deep neglect, for locals often synonimous with socialist ideals and thus to be discarded (f.e. Romanian train conductors were very well known to all work as spies for securitate), even when that is now +30 yrs ago the opinions linger on.
The train also had to shunt/take and loose some cars at various points-one of the magics of trains-and this eats time. Plus that even with the old times it was nearly always still late-hours or more. The bus also often late-mostly due to sudden severe border checks, esp. entering the EU.
That trains are so often much slower as competing buses is nothing strange-in fact this is nearly always the case in countries were rails are neglected for a few yrs-the upkeep of motorways is costly, but for railway lines even much more.
WestiWim
Traveller
1 comments
Thank you for your comment. I understand that is not a good idea to travel bij train from Istanbul to Bucarest. I see if I take a bus.