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Revised rail service from Serbia to Romania

A new train service starts today across the border between Serbia and Romania. For travellers following Route 50 in Europe by Rail, this new service provides a very useful cross-border link. Twice-daily local trains will link Vrsac in Serbia with Timisoara in neighbouring Romania. At Vrsac, there is a convenient bus connection to and from Belgrade. This bus is run by the Serbian Railways.

As we say in our description of the route in Europe by Rail, Vrsac warrants a stop when en route from the Serbian capital towards Romania. With that option in mind, it is worth noting that, in addition to the services shown below, there is an excellent fast bus service from Belgrade to Vrsac. Buses run at least hourly.

We reproduce below the new timetable for local trains between Belgrade and Vrsac, based upon information supplied by rail operators CFR Calatori (Romania) and Zeleznice Srbije (Serbia). It would appear that all services run daily (which, if true, would indeed be an improvement for until now local services to Vrsac have been sparse on Sundays).

It is worth checking the up-to-date times before travelling. The service is shown in Table 1365 of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable (ERT), and no doubt upcoming editions of that volume will reflect the new arrangements.

All times shown below are local. Thus local time in Serbia is used for all arrival and departure times for stations in the Republic of Serbia. But the departure and arrival times at Timisoara Nord are in Romanian time.

  Train Train Bus Train Train Train Train
Timisoara Nord   05.40         16.48
Vrsac 05.15 06.29 06.49 09.26 13.25 16.45 17.39
Pancevo Glavna 06.30   08.02 10.38 14.38 18.14  
Beograd Dunav 07.01   08.32     18.45  
Beograd     08.50        
  Train Train Train Train Bus Train Train
Beograd         15.55    
Beograd Dunav   07.20     16.12   19.20
Pancevo Glavna   07.52 11.20 15.04 16.40   19.52
Vrsac 07.10 09.06 12.30 16.15 18.00 18.20 21.03
Timisoara Nord 09.45         20.55  

It is worth noting that the Belgrade to Bucharest night train, which has been very much an on-off affair in recent years, has now been withdrawn. More often than not of late, insofar as the service has run at all over the Serbian section of the route, the train was replaced by a bus for the initial journey north from Belgrade. The new cross-border local trains connect well at Timisoara Nord with night trains to and from Bucharest.

The only other passenger rail service over the border from Serbia to Romania is that from Kikinda (Serbia) to Jimbolia (Romania). It is shown in ERT 1377.

Copyright © Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries. All rights reserved.
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About The Authors

Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries

Nicky and Susanne manage hidden europe, a Berlin-based editorial bureau that supplies text and images to media across Europe. Together they edit hidden europe magazine. Nicky and Susanne are dedicated slow travellers and the authors of the book Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide. The 17th edition of that book was published in 2022 and reprinted in July 2023. You'll find a list of outlets that sell the book on this website.

2 Comments

Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries, 4 October 2017

Hello @nderim. Yes, the border post between Vrsac and Timisoara is at Moravita (15 km north of Vrsac). There are buses from Vrsac to Moravita.

Nderim , 4 October 2017

Hello there I’m interested if there is any border post in between Vrsac to Timisora ? And if is where is can you tell me?

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