Irinel Scriosteanu, State Secretary of the Romanian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, on the Falciu Bridge
Trains have stopped running over the Falciu Bridge since 1992. The reasons were landslides, lack of traffic and customer interest in this route. Now the situation has changed, there is demand for transit of Ukrainian cargo. The costs of repairing the bridge will be borne by Romania, with financial support from the EU.
During a recent working visit to the Fălciu-Cantemir bridge under repair, the state secretary of the Romanian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Irinel Skriosteanu, announced that train traffic would soon resume here. He said that the joint Romanian-Moldovan road infrastructure projects, which are being implemented at different stages, offer opportunities to optimize the transportation of goods, attract investments and strengthen Moldova’s role as a logistics hub.
“We have 14 joint projects with the Moldovan authorities: the construction of 5 new bridges across the Prut and the rehabilitation of all the existing bridges,” Irinel Scriosteanu specified.
The rehabilitation works on the Falciu Bridge have already started, at the first stage they are carried out by the own forces of the Romanian Railways company.
The reconstruction of the Falciu railway bridge was started at the same time as the construction of the new road bridge in Ungheni. The strategic location of these two crossings on the Moldova-EU border will allow the creation of new logistics chains for export/import of goods.
In general, the Falciu Bridge rehabilitation project envisages works on the railroad tracks and on the bridge itself: replacement of worn-out wooden sleepers, restoration of the embankment, crushed stone filling, sheet piling of the railroad bed. A contracting company will be engaged by the Romanian side for complex works. It is planned to restore the Falciu Bridge by the fall of 2025. On the Moldovan territory, the task is to repair 1.8 km of track from the bridge towards Cantemir.
The Romanian Railways (CFR) and the Moldovan Railways (CFM) are responsible for the direct implementation of the project. Between them, a Memorandum on the resumption of the Falciu – Cantemir railway connection was signed in Chisinau on April 14, 2025.
At the first stage, only freight transportation will be carried out through the Falciu bridge. But it is not excluded that passenger transportation is possible in the future. For this purpose, it is necessary to reconstruct the Prut-2 and Falciu border stations.
The Falciu bridge has a relatively small width and is designed for one-way train traffic. However, it still has both wide gauge and narrow gauge (European standard) rails, which can be an additional advantage.
Constructed in 1951, the Cantemir-Falciu bridge, even after the cessation of traffic on it, has many times been in the center of attention of the authorities of the two countries. A project to transform it into an automobile bridge was discussed, but it became irrelevant. First of all, because there were firm plans to build a new automobile bridge to the north, to Ungheni.
In 2011, Romania spent 7.88 million lei (about 1.5 million euros) to modernize its Falciu railway station. However, no concerted action was taken on the Moldovan side to repair the access roads.
In January 2025, during a meeting organized in Chisinau with the participation of representatives of the European Commission, it was decided to fully reconstruct the railway tracks and resume train traffic over the Falciu bridge.
When approving the Budget Plus financial package in early April, the Moldovan government planned to allocate 85 million lei to repair the access road from Cantemir to the Falciu railway bridge.
The money will also be used to repair a 300-meter-long section of the railroad near the village of Valeni, on the Giurgiulesti-Cahul line. This will make it possible to restore the transportation of goods along the line: Romanian border – Giurgiulesti – Cahul – Chisinau.
