Romania's railway infrastructure company CFR Infrastructura has teamed up with Belgian company Euro Station to revamp and extend Bucharest's railway system, including the Gara de Nord main railway station. Negotiations followed a memorandum of understanding between Romania and Belgium's Transport Ministries, signed in 2011.

CFR and Euro Station will together create a firm that will be registered in Romania and manage the project.

Euro Station has worked on railway station projects in Belgium, including the Antwerp Central Station, which was included among the most beautiful railway stations in the world and which is dubbed the 'railway cathedral'. There the trains stop on different levels and a railway connection was laid under the city, while the historical building was completely renovated.

Bucharest's Gara de Nord was inaugurated in 1872, after four years of work. Its last restoration happened between 1997-1999. In 2011, around 3.6 million passengers used the railway station, compared to some 6.3 million in 2009.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Wikimedia Commons)