CFR Călători and MAV Trakcio signed collaboration agreement

CFR Călători, the Romanian national railway passenger operator, has signed a Collaboration Agreement with MAV Trakcio, the railway traction operator in Hungary. The contract was signed in Bucharest, at CFR Călători’s head office.
“The strategy of the Romanian State is to develop new railway services in conditions of an optimal transport tariff/costs ratio, so cross-border services need rethinking. We have to be aware that, beside commercial interests, both railway undertakings provide public transport services and have to ensure the mobility of people”, declared Ştefan Roşeanu, General Manager CFR Călători.
The bilateral agreement is the concretisation of the interoperability measures promoted by the European Union and aimed to ease railway traffic with Central Europe and to reduce the travel time of international trains by using a single locomotive between Bucharest and Budapest.
The contract stipulates the mutual traction of international trains on the route Bucharest-Budapest with locomotives and locomotive staff so as to optimise the border crossing without changing the locomotive at the frontier of the two countries.
Both parties have expressed their availability to continue collaboration for developing bilateral relationships on cross-border co-operation to meet the transport needs of the people living in the two member states of the EU, Romania and Hungary. Therefore, at the invitation of MAV Trakcio, the first reunion of the Working Group – set up for the reanalysis of the cross-border railway services- will take place in Budapest in January 2013 after the finalisation of the new train schedule.

Photo: Club Feroviar