Main Railway Line Between Romania and Bulgaria to Close in 2027
Train services between Romania and Bulgaria will be heavily disrupted for most of 2027 as the main railway line linking the two countries will be closed for reconstruction.
Closure of the Giurgiu–Ruse railway line
Scheduled maintenance and reconstruction work will take place between April and December 2027 on the railway line linking Giurgiu in Romania with Ruse in Bulgaria.
The works are part of a wider infrastructure project to modernise the railway line between Bucharest, Jilava, Giurgiu Nord and the Friendship Bridge across the River Danube, which forms the border between Romania and Bulgaria.
Among other works, the railway line will be electrified and a Level 2 ERTMS signalling system will be installed.
Because of the works, no passenger trains will be able to cross the railway bridge between Giurgiu and Ruse.
This will cause major disruption to international train services between Romania and Bulgaria for most of 2027.
Diversions
It is not yet known whether international train services between Romania and Bulgaria will be cancelled altogether, partly replaced by rail replacement buses, or diverted to alternative routes between April and December 2027.
According to Club Feroviar, sources within CFR, Romania’s national railway company, are looking into alternative routes for trains travelling to Bulgaria.
Among the alternatives are the underused international railway bridge linking Calafat in Romania with Vidin in north-western Bulgaria, as well as the Negru Vodă–Kardam railway line in the far east of both countries, near the Black Sea coast.
Passenger train traffic between Romania and Bulgaria
While rerouting cargo trains via alternative border crossings might be a good solution for freight traffic, it will be more complicated for passenger services.
Currently, there is basically just one train service between Romania and Bulgaria that uses the Giurgiu–Ruse railway line.
This is the Bucharest–Ruse train service, which is extended to Sofia during the summer season.
During the summer months, the train also carries through carriages to Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, as well as through couchette carriages of the Bucharest–Istanbul night train.
These through carriages are all detached from the main Bucharest–Sofia train at Gorna Orjahovitsa. From there, the couchettes to Istanbul are added to a southbound train to Svilengrad, while the carriages for Varna are attached to a train heading east towards the coast.
What will happen to trains from Romania to Bulgaria in 2027?
With the annual timetable change taking place on the second Sunday of December – 13 December in 2026 – there is still some time for railway planners to work out the details of the train services.
Probably the easiest train service to reroute is the Bucharest–Sofia service, which could run via Craiova and Vidin to the Bulgarian capital.
Although the summer-seasonal train to Varna could also be diverted via Negru Vodă–Kardam, this cross-border railway line is in poor condition.
It would therefore not be a surprise if railway bosses at CFR and their Bulgarian counterparts at BDZ were to axe this service for 2027.
Rerouting the Bucharest–Istanbul train for the summer season of 2027 will most likely not be an option, given that the two diversionary railway lines are a long way from its original route, making such a connection impractical.
That likely means the train will either be cut back to operate only between Ruse and Istanbul, with a replacement bus service between Bucharest and Istanbul, or cancelled altogether for 2027.
Conclusion
For almost the entire year of 2027, there will be no international train traffic on the main railway line between Romania and Bulgaria.
This line, which runs from Bucharest to the Romanian border station in Giurgiu and across an international railway bridge over the River Danube to Ruse in Bulgaria, will be closed from April to December 2027 for modernisation works.
During this period, international train services such as the Bucharest–Sofia train and Bucharest–Istanbul night train will either be diverted, cancelled, or partially replaced by buses.
The railway timetable for 2027 is still being drafted, so how these international train services will operate in the coming year remains to be seen.
Read my Romania train travel guide and Bulgaria train travel guide for more information about the railways in these countries.
