The București to Giurgiu line is passable after 19 years

After a long time, the repair of the damaged section of the line, which is (was) the main link between the Romanian metropolis and Bulgaria, was completed.

Traffic on it was interrupted on 13 August 2005, when one span of the old bridge over the Argeș River near the village of Grădiștea fell. This happened during a flash flood, the effect of which was officially cited as the reason for the collapse of the bridge. A new bridge was already under construction nearby, but its construction was interrupted in 1989, after the fall of the communist regime, and was never completed. After the fall of the bridge, an alternative route through Videle had to be used, which is 30 km longer in the direction from București - on the București Nord - Giurgiu Nord route it is specifically 114 km via Videle against 85 km via Grădiștea. However, the subject line itself is shorter, it branches off from the southern part of the Bucharest railway circuit at the Jilava station, from which the distance to the Giurgiu Nord station is 55 km.

In December 2020, the awarding of the contract for the renovation of the 13-kilometer section Vidra - Comana to PORR Construct S.R.L., i.e. the Romanian subsidiary of the Austrian construction group PORR, was announced. Part of the construction was also the restoration of four bridges, or in the case of the bridge near the village of Grădiștea, it was the construction of a new one, when the collapsed one was demolished and the one under construction was dismantled and its material used elsewhere as far as possible. The renovated line was finally put into operation this spring, and from 1 June 2024, seven pairs of passenger trains run daily on the București Nord - Giurgiu route, consisting of the CFR Călători's Desiro Classic DMU.

The remaining 42 km of the line is in its original state, and in the southern part, track class is still limited due to unstable ground, which makes it impossible for locomotive-hauled trains to operate there. The only international train that connects Romania and Bulgaria via Giurgia - Ruse continues to be routed via Videle. It is train 460/461 Gorna Orjachovica - București Nord, which acxtually is only three-car on Romanian territory, consisting of direct coaches from Sofia, Varna and Istanbul (occasionally only two-car, if the coach from Istanbul is terminated at Gorna Orjachovica station due to too long delay). The renovation of the line will continue, the remaining sections will undergo reconstruction, which will also be double-tracked (the section Vidra - Comana will remain single-track), and the entire line Jilava - Vidra - Comana - Giurgiu will be electrified. The works in question are now being tendered and should last another 3 years (including design - just like the already completed renovation, this one will also be awarded in the "design and build" mode). Contrary to current reports, this construction should no longer mean another long-term interruption of traffic on the București - Giurgiu line. However, in optimistic case, it is estimated that it will take at least five more years before the direct București to Giurgiu line will be usable for locomotive-hauled (and therefore freight) trains. The border bridge across the Danube between the cities of Giurgiu and Ruse should also be renovated, but it does not yet have a specific date.

The București to Giurgiu line used relatively frequently by long-distance passenger transport even after the change of regime, for example the 1995/1996 timetable shows five pairs of such trains there. Four were run between București and Sofia, one to/from Istanbul. Some of them also had direct coaches to/from St. Petersburg, Riga, Minsk, Moskva or in the opposite direction to Thessaloniki.

Since 2013, Romania has also been connected to Bulgaria by a railway bridge between the cities of Calafat and Vidin. It was briefly used by an express train (or rather direct coaches) on the Budapest - Sofia route, but currently it is again used in passenger traffic by only one pair of services 1090/1091 Vidin - Craiova, formed by the CFR Călători's Desiro DMU.