The fact that the train’s arrival is a historic moment says a lot about Romania and what it can (not) do. Other European countries bring dozens of electric trains a year, and we are happy to have launched a train after a 20-year hiatus. What could be next for Alstom trains? What questions should we ask ourselves? What is the advantage of electric frames over classic locomotives and wagons?

Why are we happy for only one train? Because after 2003, Romania could not buy anything

If we were to modify an old Romanian proverb, we could say that you cannot make a railway “spring” with one train, just as you cannot make spring with one flower. So it’s not a “rail revolution” with just one train from Alstom, but it’s a start.

The Alstom Coradia Stream train arrived from Poland as part of a freight train and had priority on the way to Bucharest, so it traveled several times faster than a classic freight train, which can reach even Curtici in Constanta in 3-4 days, with a long stop at different stations.

The Alstom train only took 19 hours from Curtici to Bucharest because it was given a kind of “VIP lane” that ordinary freight trains don’t have. The train arrived in cargo because it does not yet have permission to run its own engines on Romanian tracks, for which it still has to undergo several static and aerodynamic tests to obtain the necessary permits.

The new train has found a country where the old ones are hours late

In the morning, when the “Săgeata Vișinie” crossed the road between Brasov and Bucharest, the pantograph of the locomotive of the CFR passenger train broke, three people were injured by hitting the window, and several trains were delayed for more than 100 minutes.

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When the Alstom train arrived at Gare de Nord around 10.30am, there were three trains more than 100 minutes late on the schedule. Alstom trains arrive in a country with many railway problems.

The train consists of six cars (two end cars with driver’s cabins and four intermediate cars) and has 351 seats.

We have the first train, the other two are already made in Poland, but the second train will run with passengers only in the summer, and this first train in January-February. It is impossible to say when all 37 trains will arrive in Romania, and given that Alstom has had major production problems at most plants, we dare not hope that they will arrive before the end of 2025.

Will they be comfortable on a long trip? We will find out when they will be taken to routes of hundreds of kilometers

Then the question we do NOT know the answer to (yet) is whether the seats will be comfortable over the long haul. The road from Bucharest to Constanta is not difficult, but in the future, when they also run, for example, Bucharest – Cluj, we are talking about a road of more than 8 hours. The most critical say that these trains are a kind of uncomfortable “trams”.

Logic says that these trains will be ideal for traveling for a maximum of 2-3 hours, but after 5-6 hours they can already become uncomfortable. We’ll see when more are on the rails.

Here it is worth emphasizing one thing: no matter where they go, the new Coradia Stream trains cannot perform miracles in terms of speed. They will not be faster than the fastest trains now because the infrastructure has many limitations. The first train will run between Bucharest and Constanta, as well as between Bucharest and Brasov.

The color scheme has been criticized by some, but it should not be forgotten that the Railway Reform Authority has organized a public consultation in 2022 to choose the optimal color scheme.

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Another question we hope to get a positive answer to is how the maintenance will be done, and here we can hope that the people at Alstom will do a good job, and we can’t even think that they will suffer the fate of the blue arrows. A 15 year maintenance was also purchased so it’s usually fine.

The Coradia Stream model is in operation in several European countries and is considered a reliable model, so we should not have any problems in Romania with these trains, which are much larger than what we have now.

It is clear that some of the passengers will leave a mess, it is possible that the trains will be painted with graffiti and, most likely, Romanians will cover the toilets with papers. And here the solution will be maintenance and cleaning services “as in the world”. if the toilet door breaks, it needs to be fixed quickly, not weeks. If the air conditioning system “fails”, it needs to be fixed the next day, not with the onset of autumn.

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Alstom’s new trains are a huge step forward, but they will also run on the same “sinful” Romanian infrastructure with hundreds of speed limits, and these trains have no “wings” to fly, so they will also park in the event of a derailment or locomotive breakdown passenger train. The trains look good, but they enter the system with a lot of problems.

What are the advantages of electroframes over classic trains with locomotives and wagons?

These Alstom trains are “electric frames”, which in English is called “electric multiple unit” (EMU). They differ from classic locomotive + car trains in that in these electric frames the engines are built into one or more cars, so there is no need for locomotives.

Better acceleration as more motors share the same load. A big plus is that it does not pollute the environment compared to diesel cars that emit a lot of smoke.

There are three electric trains running in Romania, the famous red Softrans trains produced in Craiova. Other countries have invested billions in electric trains because they have good acceleration, are quieter than diesel locomotives and have lower operating costs than locomotive + car.

It should be said here that in Central and Eastern Europe long-distance InterCity trains are, as a rule, locomotive+car type trains, not saloon cars, like almost all of us, but cars with six-seater compartments, where there is more legroom .

Why Alstom is in financial difficulties and why orders are so late

​Alstom is the world’s second-largest maker of rail vehicles, but is struggling financially due to debt and announced in mid-November that it would cut 1,500 jobs. The company has a lot of orders but is behind on fulfilling them, especially those coming from its 2021 takeover of rival Bombardier Transport.

With a large number of orders that cannot be fulfilled, the company must be selective and choose those it considers to be a priority. Alstom is also producing the next generation of French high-speed trains, called TGV M, but many fear they won’t be ready until 2025, and it’s also a sensitive political issue.

The value of rolling stock orders from around the world is more than 90 billion euros and these orders will last for many years, but there are long delays in their fulfillment. 30 billion of the €90 billion in the “order book” was “inherited” by the Bombardier takeover.

The company is unable to fulfill all orders and has accumulated long delays in various countries, also due to problems with some electronic components. There were delays everywhere, even with France, as well as the UK and Denmark. We must not forget the delay with the metro, which is produced in Brazil, for Bucharest.

“Designing a train is like creating a puzzle with 120,000 pieces, where every small change in one part affects the final result,” said the CEO of Alstom Denmark.

Coradia Stream trains have also been introduced in the Netherlands, and the Danes want to learn from their experience.

Alstom has debts of 3.4 billion euros and aims to reduce them by the spring of 2025 below the threshold of 1.5 billion euros.

Given the problems, it’s no surprise that the company’s market capitalization has fallen to $4.8 billion, down from $11.6 billion at the end of July.

What the Railway Reform Authority says about this new train

A new beginning. Arrival in Bucharest of the first electric train purchased by ARF

The Authority for the Reform of Railways (ARF) announces that the first Polish-made Alstom Coradia Stream electric train has arrived, which is part of a batch of 37 long-distance interregional electric frames, under a procurement contract awarded by the Romanian state. , via ARF, with supplier Alstom Ferroviaria SpA, in March 2022.

In the next period, the electric frame RE-IR 102 will begin to conduct tests (static and dynamic) and to complete the formalities related to the extended permit, since this train model no longer circulates in our country.

After the completion of these stages, the first trains will run on the routes Bucharest – Brasov and Bucharest – Constanta.

In addition, during 2024, when the rest of the Alstom trains are delivered (after production is completed and all European and national legal procedures have been completed), new transport services will be introduced on Romania’s electrified trunk routes.

We remind you that the total cost of the contract for the purchase of 37 electrical units and related maintenance services for a period of 15 years is 2,421,771,878 lei without VAT, and the project is financed from non-refundable European funds and from the state budget.