Saturday, 29 October 2016

Rail to Craiova

A couple of days ago, we took a quick rail trip trip (just one night our destination) to Craiova in western Romania. In many respects it's a nice city, though like most it has its fair share of derelict factories, crumbling low income apartments - Chateaux Stalin as I call them - and horrendous traffic jams as many two-car families navigate their cities looking for non-existent parking spaces on often narrow roads with few roundabouts or traffic lights. I've had many more pleasant trips on dodgem cars and have witnessed a few accidents here. Private citizens often seem to lack empathy or consideration for their fellow citizens as they scramble for advantage! As we shall see in a minute this results in piles of rubbish lying about, graffiti on walls, and broken infrastructure like pot-holed roads, cracked pavements, and bits falling off buildings!

Here comes our short (5-car) train backing into Bucharest's station.


Typical urban scenery - Chateaux Stalin!

A railway grave-yard: the Romanians seem reluctant to demolish or recycle useless buildings or artefacts.

It was a dull day, but a brighter horizon towards Bulgaria beckoned.


The line was used by countless goods trains - which slowed our journey and perhaps led few people to take the train. Since Bucharest has 2.5 million poeple and Craiova about 300,000, I thought that lots of people would be making the trip.


Getting brighter! Bu the power station did not add much to the scenery across the flat Danubian plain.


They must have had a good harvest this year because train-loads of wheat passed by.


And then came an oil-field!


More discarded railway stock.



This, believe it or not is a platform - and one still in use. I how many times someone sues the government when they trip over and break an arm or leg!


Not the best view of rubbish strewn alongside the track, but you'll get my earlier point.




AS

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