Why there will soon be no direct trains from Otopeni Airport to Ruse

Vlad Barza, Hotnews, 10 January 2024

Too many obstacles and delays

There would be demand for direct trains Ruse-Otopeni because Sofia airport is far from Ruse, there are fewer connections at the Bulgarian capital’s airport, and Otopeni has flights to more destinations.

It’s 400km from Ruse to Sofia and there’s only one direct train a day that takes over six hours, so a two-hour train from Ruse to Otopeni would be ideal. There is currently one train a day between Gara de Nord and Ruse, via Videle, but it takes almost three hours and is sometimes late.

The trains in Bulgaria do not have a higher average speed than those in Romania, as the Bulgarians also have large stretches with speeds of 50-60 km/h. The difference is that Bulgarian long-distance domestic trains have many stops: for example, the Ruse-Sofia train has 17 stops in 400 km.

In the past, some websites mistakenly said there were plans for a “high-speed line from Ruse to Bucharest”, but in fact there is no such thing.

Trains between Gara de Nord and Otopeni airport (‘Henri Coanda’) have been running since late 2020 , people are used to them and occupancy is high. For a number of reasons, including technical ones (one line, station with only two lines in Otopeni, lack of trains), there has been no direct service from the airport to other cities in the country and there are no plans for one.

The Bulgarian press reports that direct trains from Ruse to Otopeni airport could run from spring on line 102 (Bucharest-Giurgiu), which will be reopened after the completion of construction work in Gradiste.

However, even after the trains return to the direct route Bucharest-Comana-Giurgiu, it is not realistic to believe that they will be able to cover the approximately 115 kilometres in less time than 90-120 minutes.

The works in Gradiștea are not finished and it is clear that no passenger train will run faster than at the beginning of the summer on the old direct route Bucharest – Giurgiu and we should not expect short journey times.

The direct line 102 Bucharest – Giurgiu was NEVER a fast line and even in the best of times trains never travelled less than 70 minutes, and more often than not even fast and accelerated trains travelled 80-90 minutes.

Those trains to Ruse cross the border, so they would have to stop quite a bit, and there are 17 km from Giurgiu to Ruse where the average speed is less than 50 km/h (the only train makes 25 minutes from Giurgiu to Ruse).

So I find it hard to believe that the duration of an Otopeni – Ruse trip, if any, would be shorter than 2.5 hours.

The website romaniaferoviara.ro also writes about the possible trains Otopeni – Ruse and explains some technical aspects.

An interesting publication on the subject by the Pro Infrastructură Association (API) also unravels this railway “donut” and explains an important aspect: the problem is that there is no capacity for additional trains to Otopeni. Efforts are being made in this respect: there is a feasibility study in which a new platform has been designed in the DNCB (Bucharest ring road – n.p.) to increase the number of trains to Otopeni.

Here is the API publication

The news about a train running the distance Ruse-Otopeni in 80 minutes is a railway “donut” (false information – ed.)..

An unrealistic story about a train at the Ruse-Otopeni airport was recently spread by the media in Bulgaria and Romania. Bulgarian journalists ran an imaginary train between Ruse and the North Station for 50 minutes. They also “discovered” the operator by choosing the most modern diesel train, the Alstom Coradia Lint, to which they falsely attributed a top speed of 160 km/h.

In reality, the speeds allowed by the railway infrastructure are much lower. Before the bridge at Gradiste collapsed in 2005, the distance from Bucharest North to Ruse was covered in 110 minutes. Even after the recent repair of the line, the journey time to Ruse-North station will be approximately the same.

The adjacent press adds 30 minutes to the travel time to Ruse-North station to give the time to Otopeni. However, on a hypothetical Rousse-Otopeni run, with the appropriate infrastructure adjustments, there is no need to enter Gara de Nord, as the train can run from Kiazhna directly to Mogoshoa. For a direct connection from the airport, the time required would be only 10 minutes longer than to the Gare du Nord. We could imagine a ‘triangle’ service Ruse-Otopeni-Gara de Nord-Ruse.

The problem is that there is no extra capacity on the trains to Otopeni. Efforts are being made: there is a feasibility study in which a new DNCB platform has been designed to increase the predictability and number of trains to Otopeni.

The Bulgarian journalists also give a deadline: March 2024. At the earliest then (but most likely later) TESTS are yet to start on the Bucharest-Giurgiu line, which hasn’t seen traffic for 18 years! It is a long way from here to the introduction of a cross-border rail passenger service. Subsidies must also be obtained, which is again a long process.

Obviously, we support such a link, as well as the modernisation of the Bucharest-Giurgiu line (which already has European funding – we are awaiting the tender) and the Gara de Nord-Otopeni line, so as to reduce journey times, making such a service even more attractive. But we need to be realistic about the technical challenges, the resources needed and the timescales for implementation.

Photo: Train arriving at the airport station (source: Vlad Barză / HotNews.ro)

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