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

[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