u/BreakTrick8912

Looks like rusty rails, right?

The Tulcea Oraș (Tulcea City, as opposed to Tulcea Mărfuri, the freight station) to Medgidia railway (secția feroviară 804, railway line section 804 in the Romanian CFR network) is a line connecting the capital of Tulcea county to the broader national railway network.

The terminus, Tulcea Oraș (see last picture) follows the award winning project of Irina Rosetti. It replaced the former station closer to the port, and was built in 1972 during the demolition of the entire old city under communism. It had a first class and a second class waiting room. Now there is only a ticket office and a relatively frugal waiting room.

The line is 144 km long, non electrified, and served by two pairs of trains a day (two in the morning, two in the afternoon). In previous years an InterRegio would connect Tulcea directly to Bucharest during summer and/or from Friday to Sunday. Not in 2026.

The line currently has 14 active stops. At least two are completely abandoned - there is no staff and the buildings are completely wrecked: Zebil (third picture) and Ceamurlia de Jos (formerly called Mocani: pictures 4, 5). Others have been repurposed into private homes (Mihail Kogălniceanu, picture 2).

Interesting rusty rail findings:

• picture 2 - Mihail Kogălniceanu: black and white picture shot on film in 2020 (no filter, haha) still showing "Trăiască Partidul Comunist Român" ("Long live the Romanian Communist Party") under the station name. Very faded. I have a colour one somewhere but could not find it now.

• picture 3 - Zebil: station completely covered by vegetation (taken today from the train)

• Ceamurlia de Jos: building collapsed. Two pictures are from today.

• Many other railway buildings, water tanks in particular.

• Codru: no picture. The station is near Babadag and used to serve the still active NATO military base (CIA prison conspiracy theories!). The branch line cut through the Babadag forest and crossed the European road and it was paved over relatively recently.

• Even when stations are still operational, usually only a small bit of the building is in use. A limit case of rusty rails, I suppose?

I started travelling on this line in 2015. Paradoxically, the situation was probably worse back then: the service was operated with a Malaxa railcar built in the 1940s (first picture taken by myself in 2017, at Mihail Kogălniceanu station). Now you get a newer Siemens (picture from 2020; I travelled on the line this morning, see penultimate picture).

There is also a video on YouTube (not mine) about the lost train stations of Dobrogea. It points to a few more that are now completely gone: Frunzănești and Derichioi.

https://youtu.be/WQze5Jzm2MY

Picture Legend:

1. Malaxa railcar (built in the 1940s), Mihail Kogălniceanu station, 2017. My own picture.
2. Mihail Kogălniceanu station, shot on film in 2020, no filter. "Trăiască Partidul Comunist Român" ("Long live the Romanian Communist Party") still faintly visible under the station name.
3. Zebil station today, abandoned and covered by vegetation. My own picture.
4. An outbuilding at Ceamurlia de Jos, 2018, with a tree growing out of it. My own picture. 5 - 6 Ceamurlia de Jos today, shot from the moving train. The building has collapsed. My own picture.
5. Cogealac, 2020. The newer Siemens railcar that runs the line now. My own picture.
6. Tulcea Oraș, the terminus, 2020. Award winning project of Irina Rosetti. My own picture.

Waiting for the 5:40 to Medgidia.

Some rails close to the Rhone, in Lyon, completely cut off from civilisation:(.

Former industrial area close to Paris, nowadays gentrified (but the rails are there!).

M14 -> Aéroport d'Orly