Welcome to today's thread - 2025 #CrossBorderRail Finale Day 27 - 13 July - Oradea - Valea lui Mihai - Satu Mare - Halmeu - Satu Mare - Sighetu Marmației
Today's new borders:
Halmeu 🇷🇴 - Nevetlenfolu 🇺🇦
Câmpulung la Tisa 🇷🇴 - Teresva 🇺🇦
Borders map, inc. borders re-crossed:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-all-the-borders_935041#14/48.0007/23.0035
Today's trains on the routes map:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#10/47.5404/22.8770
Here's today's #CrossBorderRail music track
Trenul Cursă de Persoane Apahida Cluj-Napoca
Semnal M
Thanks @db for this very special track!
Here's today's intro video - hopefully this one worked!
#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 126 of 166
R 4333
07:35 Oradea - Valea lui Mihai 08:57
CFR Călători
Train type: Siemens Desiro DMU, 2 short carriages
⛽️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ❓ (theoretically possible, but disabled access door is broken)
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 🙂
🧽: ☹️ (ok, I have to put standards of maintenance somewhere, and it goes here - the train is orderly, but it smells terrible and there are loads of cracked window panes)
🎫 Interrail: 🙂 (accepted)
R 4333
07:35 Oradea - Valea lui Mihai 08:57
Distance: 65.7km
Average speed: 48km/h
10 stops:
Episcopia Bihor
Biharia
Tămăseu h
Roșiori Bihor Hm
Diosig
Cadia hc
Săcuieni Bihor
Șilindru
Simion hc
Valea lui Mihai
This train, mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#10/47.3174/22.1766
The final big #CrossBorderRail tour - to the eastern borders of the EU, and missing intra-EU borders. In June-July 2025. Each day of the project is a Layer in the map - these should be displayed by default, or if not click the three layered diamonds icon "Open browser" to the left side of the map. The icons are all for borders, roughly coloured to differentiate the borders. A cross through a track means NO TRAINS CAN RUN. A cross through trains but not track means TRAINS CAN RUN BUT NO PASSENGER TRAINS. And TRAIN AND TRACK (no crosses) means there is a passenger service.
And there goes the Romanian border policeman to check the incoming Debrecen - Satu Mare in Valea Lui Mihai, the first Romanian station
Rail passenger here: Schengen doesn’t work
(I was only boarding here so didn’t get checked)
#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 127 of 166
R 6822
10:40 Valea lui Mihai - Satu Mare 11:59
CFR Călători
Train type: Electroputere 60 Diesel, 2 carriages
⛽️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ⛔️ (no way - steps too high, no ramp)
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😐 (ok once in but hellish to get in)
🧽: 🙂
🎫 Interrail: 🙂 (accepted)
R 6822
10:40 Valea lui Mihai - Satu Mare 11:59
Distance: 67.2km
Average speed: 51km/h
11 stops:
Curtuișeni Hm
Resighea h
Sanislău
Marna hc
Carei
Domănești Hm
Moftin hcv
General Gh. Avramescu
Sătmarel Hm
Satu Mare Sud
Satu Mare
This train, mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#10/47.7670/22.5048
The final big #CrossBorderRail tour - to the eastern borders of the EU, and missing intra-EU borders. In June-July 2025. Each day of the project is a Layer in the map - these should be displayed by default, or if not click the three layered diamonds icon "Open browser" to the left side of the map. The icons are all for borders, roughly coloured to differentiate the borders. A cross through a track means NO TRAINS CAN RUN. A cross through trains but not track means TRAINS CAN RUN BUT NO PASSENGER TRAINS. And TRAIN AND TRACK (no crosses) means there is a passenger service.
I found the friendliest CFR staff I could imagine at Satu Mare. She fixed all the Interrail reservations I needed for the rest of my trip in Romania.
Pic is of the neighbouring window 😀
Pro tip when travelling on a DB Regio Westfran… oops sorry Interregional Călători 628 DMU
Only one carriage is powered
Travel in the other one - that’s this carriage with no motor under the floor
It’s always quieter and on a hot day might be cooler too
#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 128 of 166
R 10665
12:38 Satu Mare - Halmeu 13:05
Interregional Călători
Train type: Düwag, Waggon-Union, AEG, LHB, MBB 628 DMU, 2 carriages
⛽️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ⛔️
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😐 (steep steps, low platforms)
🧽: 😐 (graffiti outside)
🎫 Interrail: ☹️ (not accepted, private operator)
R 10665
12:38 Satu Mare - Halmeu 13:05
Distance: 22.5km
Average speed: 50km/h
4 stops:
Ramura Botiz h
Micula
Porumbești hc
Halmeu
This train, mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#12/47.8887/22.9441
The final big #CrossBorderRail tour - to the eastern borders of the EU, and missing intra-EU borders. In June-July 2025. Each day of the project is a Layer in the map - these should be displayed by default, or if not click the three layered diamonds icon "Open browser" to the left side of the map. The icons are all for borders, roughly coloured to differentiate the borders. A cross through a track means NO TRAINS CAN RUN. A cross through trains but not track means TRAINS CAN RUN BUT NO PASSENGER TRAINS. And TRAIN AND TRACK (no crosses) means there is a passenger service.
#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 129 of 166
R 10668
15:13 Halmeu - Satu Mare 15:40
Interregional Călători
Train type: Düwag, Waggon-Union, AEG, LHB, MBB 628 DMU, 2 carriages
⛽️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ⛔️
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😐 (steep steps, low platforms)
🧽: 😐 (graffiti outside)
🎫 Interrail: ☹️ (not accepted, private operator)
Same unit I arrived on.
R 10668
15:13 Halmeu - Satu Mare 15:40
Distance: 22.5km
Average speed: 50km/h
4 stops:
Ramura Botiz h
Micula
Porumbești hc
Halmeu
This train, mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#12/47.8887/22.9441
The final big #CrossBorderRail tour - to the eastern borders of the EU, and missing intra-EU borders. In June-July 2025. Each day of the project is a Layer in the map - these should be displayed by default, or if not click the three layered diamonds icon "Open browser" to the left side of the map. The icons are all for borders, roughly coloured to differentiate the borders. A cross through a track means NO TRAINS CAN RUN. A cross through trains but not track means TRAINS CAN RUN BUT NO PASSENGER TRAINS. And TRAIN AND TRACK (no crosses) means there is a passenger service.
#CrossBorderRail Finale Bus 18 of 24
15:30 Satu Mare - Sighetu Marmației 18:00
Tur Călători
Bus type: Mercedes Sprinter minibus
⛽️
🚲: ⛔️ (there’d be space in hold, but driver is a sod - would he let you?)
🦽: ⛔️
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 🙂 (large hold)
🧽: 🙂
Route of the vehicle: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#10/47.9019/23.3904
Never let it be said I don’t like border police
My bus was behind a border police van, and it stopped the bus doing kamikaze overtaking manoeuvres! 😀
@jon Less immediately noticeable: The worn bilingual (RO-HU) street name sign
EDIT: And the gutter on the right extending over the fence to empty onto the street (presumably one of the "alleged" kind), oddly funny
You should try the Danish "IC4" trains:
Some genius who do not even qualify for "You had one job" put the quiet compartment on top of the very noisy diesel engines.
It's actually kind of fascinating how the engines and the automatic gearboxes in the IC4 sound like a passive-aggressive couple hours away from an explosive divorce.
It must take a special kind of talent to botch up a diesel with automatic gears, considering that millions of them plow the roads day in and day out in trucks.
IC-4 is a disaster combining Second Systems Syndrome with unfounded trust in a liberal market which did not exist, seasoned with incompetence at so many levels.
At one point they had a "not breaking" incident, which they could only reproduce the like of by dousing almost one km rail in vegetable oil.
How is that even possible ?!
@jon That word, "lucru". Westerners think "profit", I think "icing on a cake" (yes, it's so delightfully weird XD), Romanians think… "work, stuff", apparently.
In any case, as best as I can tell that sign means the ticket office is staffed 24/7 for the summer holidays and not just Mo-Fr 8-15, which is… huh.
Also while looking into this I found out Hungarian has munka and Romanian has muncă for work, coming from the Slavic word for "torment", which I find quite reasonable and apt
@ale_antpower @HaTetsu @jon I just checked, and it's even harsher than that:
Apparently the German "Arbeit" stems from a now-lost Germanic word that meant "a child who has been orphaned and is therefore forced to do hard labour to survive"
(I'm not making this up, check the Etymologie section on this page: https://www.dwds.de/wb/Arbeit)
… and I learned from Bini Adamczak* that the idealization of work (in opposite of capital) in the Marxist sense is inherently capitalist, since it excludes anything that gives sense to work. (Hard to explain in 1 toot, see the epiloge of her book “Communism for Kids”, https://unrast-verlag.de/produkt/kommunismus/.)
*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bini_Adamczak / https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bini_Adamczak
Jon Worth
波鉄 (Hatetsu)
Wrzlbrnft
Michael 🐸
Poul-Henning Kamp
AnneH
Murphestophelese MurphMeister
Damien
Kg. Madee Ⅱ.
Nortix
Rocketman
ale von tarvisium
Hraban (fiëé visuëlle)
Roland Sivonen
Tomasz Oryński
Indra Kupferschmid 💙💛
Oskar im Keller