This train goes up

[topum]

The train from Chisinau, the capital of Moldova to Bucharest, the capital of Romania takes slightly over 13 hours. The distance is around 285 miles. Yep, that's below 22 miles per hour on average. Moldovans and Romanians will not be taking any prizes for the fastest trains from the Japanese any time soon.

The border crossing and customs take over three hours because the wheels of the train need to be changed at the border due to the rail gauge difference between the two countries. The USSR had different width rail tracks from the rest of Europe as a defence measure to prevent European trains from being able to cross its borders apparently. Moldova used to be part of the USSR, Romania wasn't. The wheel change involves lifting each of the carriages up one by one (with all the passengers still inside them) and, well, changing the wheels. I think that provides for a very rare opportunity to move vertically up in a train carriage.

Here you can see the wheels waiting for the next train at the "wheel changing station" at the border:

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

!!!!!!!!

This may be the single most amazing thing I have learned from all your posts about Moldova.

THEY LIFT THE TRAIN AND CHANGE THE WHEELS EVERY TIME. JUST IN CASE OF BEING INVADED. BY TRAIN. INVASION BY TRAIN IS THAT SCARY.

That is a level of quite unimaginable paranoia. Wow.

[(Anonymous)]

They are not afraid of it anymore but it is too expensive to change all the tracks. During the Soviet times, yes apparently they thought that that would be an additional obstacle to invasion and occupation by the west.

[topum.livejournal.com]

That was me above, I got logged off and did not notice.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Wow. Still wow.

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

That is amazing.

[topum.livejournal.com]

It really was a WTF moment when our carriage suddenly shot up in the air. It got even more WTF when we were told "Oh, don't worry, they are just changing the wheels". Just changing the wheels? On a train? Changing the wheels on an effing train?

[prorsus.livejournal.com]

Wow, amazing.

[topum.livejournal.com]

We thought so too.

[(Anonymous)]

Lol, that's screwed up.

[topum.livejournal.com]

You gotta keep yourself safe from invasion by trains.

[beautesauvage13.livejournal.com]

Wow cool.  Bet that would be a fun train ride.  I was on a train once here.  Going to Halifax NS.  It was roughly an 8hr train ride.  They didn't have to lift the train though. 

Athena

[topum.livejournal.com]

It is not much fun spending 13 hours to move 285 miles ).

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

I know about the need to change wheels! My parents both worked for the railway, so this is common knowledge in our family and we often talked about it. Also when they were young they travelled to Moscow by train which took several days I believe. At the way home they were late for their own engagement party, which was had by the parents all by themselves.

I had no idea the wheel changing was done with the people still inside though! Very interesting! I don't know what I expected - people getting out and standing around in the cold waiting?

[topum.livejournal.com]

Very interesting.
Yes, the carriages are lifted with the people inside. No one would be allowed to get out even if they wanted because it is done between the two border checkpoints.

[sagittariusbun.livejournal.com]

That looks very ... confusing.

[topum.livejournal.com]

It does, especially when you in of those carriages that are lifted up.

[sagittariusbun.livejournal.com]

We get two types of traina in my town, freight trains and Go Trains... more Go trains than freighters anymore. None of them are lifting carriages. o_O

[topum.livejournal.com]

Domestic trains here do not lift carriages either. This one is international and is crossing the border and Romania has tracks of different width.

[sagittariusbun.livejournal.com]

That is weird.... crossing the border is getting really complicated. To me that is.

[topum.livejournal.com]

Luckily very few borders are as complicated as this one when it comes to trains.

[sagittariusbun.livejournal.com]

I'd love to experience that. A wee bit scary but that's kind of fun too.

[topum.livejournal.com]

It is very smooth and not that scary actually. You might even not notice it if you are not looking out of the window.

[sagittariusbun.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a kid's rollercoaster. lol

[egg-shell.livejournal.com]

Very surreal! I would have never imagined such a thing.

[topum.livejournal.com]

We were very surprised when our carriage started moving up.

[apel.livejournal.com]

Whoa! That would surprise me too. Were there no announcements before?

[topum.livejournal.com]

No, there were no announcements, they have a "this needs to be done, deal with it" attitude everywhere here.
They lift the carriage very smoothly though, you might not even notice it right away. But if you are looking out of the window and see the ground going down all of a sudden, it does make for a good WTF? moment.

[apel.livejournal.com]

That would never fly here. They'd be sued to high heaven by some middle-aged cry baby in shorts.

[topum.livejournal.com]

Moldovans would laugh even at the thought of suing for this. They are very good at accepting that half of the things in your life are uncertain, do not go how you want them to, are "not right" or are even scary and that you will feel like crap sometimes. They treat it as part of life, do not tend to find something or someone to blame or stop it and move on quickly. I still haven't met a Moldovan with depression or anxiety, there is nobody who has ever had it in the seven villages we work with regularly (and boy, those people do not have easy lives).

[(Anonymous)]

Very interesting.

[topum.livejournal.com]

Yes, not something one would expect on a train ride.

[sleepybadger.livejournal.com]

WOW! I mean, i guess I understand the logic that went into the original thought process, but WOW. That must have been a really interesting experience. I wish my dad was still coherent, he used to work on trains here in the US and I wonder if he ever heard about that.

[topum.livejournal.com]

It was interesting and surprising. They lift the carriage slowly and smoothly and if you are not looking out of the window you might even not notice it.

[isledemoi.livejournal.com]

Down along the costal rail line here they change the bogeys also at the border and it takes about 15 mins...

[topum.livejournal.com]

It takes longer here partly because of two immigration and customs controls.