Craiova is a junction, not a terminus: the main line from Bucharest runs through it and on towards Filiaşi, Timişoara and the Danube at Calafat, all of it under wire. For anyone who likes railways this is the appeal — it is a working operational railway with the old furniture still in place, not a preserved one. The city also built locomotives: Electroputere turned them out here for decades, and the name is still on machines all over the country.
West of the station, where Strada Gârleşti crosses the tracks, the barriers are still worked by hand from the hut beside the line and a keeper sits out front in a hi-vis vest. Several running lines and a set of sidings cross the road on concrete panels. Stand on the pavement, not between the rails, and do not stand where the keeper has to watch you instead of the road.
Long-distance CFR services to Bucharest and westwards, regional stoppers, and freight — the freight is the reason for the sidings and the reason something is usually moving. Late afternoon into dusk is the best of it: the light goes pink behind the masts and the signals come on. The freight is not all CFR either — private operators work through here in their own liveries, which is half the interest if you are photographing rather than travelling.
The things worth photographing here are small: kilometre posts, the RX B boards on their poles, mast numbers stencilled at eye height, the head-shunt gear beside the barrier. Compound catenary masts and the older lattice gantries stand side by side.
About 2 km from the centre, open around the clock, and a good place to watch from the ends of the platforms. It is a big through station with a lot of lines. Photograph the trains, not the staff or the security fittings, and if anyone in uniform asks what you are doing, say it plainly — railway photography from public areas is not a problem here, but an argument on a platform is. Read the destination boards in the coach windows rather than the departure screen if you want to know what is standing where — Sibiu, up over the mountains, is one of the runs that starts here, and it is the sort of journey that is worth taking for its own sake.
Bordei level crossing and Craiova station