from Thursday 12 to Monday 23 September 2019
186 photos
I started a mainly Moldova trip from Luton with first a flight to Cluj-Napoca where we stayed one night. Next day was a long daytime run to Iaşi with some good scenery in the middle section. Next day was the start of the PTG Moldova tour and to get the ball rolling a broad gauge CFM DMU from the terminus platform at Socola to take us the short distance to Ungheni. From there we started to main part of the tour with a ChME3 on two carriages one of with was a comfortable restaurant car, our first journey was to head north to Bălți-Slobozia where we stayed for two nights. It was a day trip out next day and over the “border” to Rîbnița in Transdinistria, a good way to collect passport stamps and see their fascinating plastic coins in local currency. Next day it was north to Ocnița and Moghiliov-Podolski in Ukraine via the branch from Rediul Mare to Bratuseni. Thankfully we had decent Kharkhov “ten” power for the cross border section. It was then an incredibly slow (401 km in four hours!) for the bus to take us to Chernivtsi. Next morning we travelled on the regular UZ service train to Sokyriany with M62-1260 in a very attractive blue and yellow livery. Numerous passport stamps and then once back in our bus a further two hours to do the two road border crossings. We then rejoined our special for the long run back to Chișinău. Next a free day s “ten” power out to Berești for the walk to Ungheni and back to Chișinău, both on Moskva trains. Finally the long trip to Cahul, out via Bender 2, Basarabeasca and Reni and then back the next day via Prut-2, Basarabeasca depot and Bălțaț. Service train DMU took us to Odessa next morning and time to recover from some horrible food poisoning! I then flew to Krakow and a TLK to Warszawa for one night. Finally Wizz back to Luton and back home