In brief: Romania’s transport ministry has signed a draft order to stop unscheduled freight trains from jumping ahead of scheduled ones on the approaches to the Port of Constanța, the Black Sea’s largest port by throughput.
The draft, published for public consultation on October 17 and updating a 2024 order, covers the whole chain from vessel arrival to wagon delivery at loading points. If a scheduled train is delayed by state rail operator CFR, neither the rail nor port operator is penalised and another scheduled train can take its place; if the rail operator causes the delay, it alone is penalised. Trains pushed ahead of the queue for any other reason — including informal requests cited by the minister — will no longer be allowed; operators doing so risk losing their loading slot and facing higher fines. Minister Radu Miruță said unscheduled wagons had effectively become “warehouses on wheels” near the port while favoured trains were let through first, and linked the change to a commitment made to Romanian farmers two weeks earlier.
Exporters and forwarders moving grain and other cargo through Constanța should expect stricter scheduling discipline once the order is finalised, which could ease bottlenecks but will require tighter coordination between vessel, rail and loading-point timing; the draft remains open for consultation, so final terms may still change.
Source: Mediafax, October 17, 2026.