The new state company that will replace CFR Marfă. What happens to the 3,000 employees and why are private operators opposed

CFR Marfă is among the state companies going into liquidation, announced Prime Minister Bolojan on Friday, and a new company was established in its place. Carpatica Feroviar will take over part of the employees and is led by the former director of CFR Marfă, who promises that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated:

CFR Marfă employees do not automatically transfer to the new company Carpatica Feroviar, especially since, in total, the new operator will have several hundred fewer employees than the company that is about to be liquidated.

On the Carpatica website there are lists of available positions, the location and the date by which you can apply. A “vacancy application guide” is also published, and those who wish to apply must email their application.

Carpatica Ferroviar, activities of strategic interest instead of CFR Marfă

Discussions about the company that will replace CFR Marfă intensified at the beginning of 2023. At that time, the Government was discussing an emergency ordinance, at the proposal of the Ministry of Transport, for the establishment of several companies that would play strategic roles in the region. Among them was Carpatica Feroviar, a company that would have the legal obligation to ensure the strategic transports of the Romanian state.

In October 2024, the Government approved the establishment of the railway freight transport operator Carpatica Feroviar SA The idea was that the new company would gradually replace CFR Marfă, an operator that has declined enormously in the last 20 years. Carpatica Feroviar SA would carry out activities of strategic interest, but it would also deal with commercial activities, the official documents from that time showed.

The estimate at that time was that the new company should be operational in 2025 and will be a state company, financed from its own sources. If everything goes well, the company could be listed on the stock exchange in two years, officials from the Ministry of Transport argued a year ago.

Carpatica Feroviar, led by the former director of CFR Marfă

In March 2025, the director of CFR Marfă, Daniel Apostolache, resigned and it was announced that he would also take over the management of Carpatica Feroviar. Apostolache was director of CFR Marfă for three years and worked in the company since 2004 (he started as an engineer at the revision of Bucuresti Progresu wagons).

In mid-October 2025, the Carpatica Feroviar Romania company announced that it was starting the staff recruitment process, according to Agerpres. Daniel Apostolache promised “a transparent campaign” and said there were 2,000 open positions. In a statement made in a conference on railway topics, the head of the company said that the recruitment targets a maximum number of 2,500 employees.

We are looking for locomotive drivers, train drivers, shunters and technical reviewers, instructors and customs declarants, but also engineers, IT specialists, economists, marketing professionals, costs and commercial regulations). Carpatica Feroviar will manage a fleet consisting of 6,450 freight cars and 200 locomotives.

Carpatica Feroviar will be “that CFR Cargo from the good old days, many years ago”

Carpatica Feroviar wants to get rid of the CFR Marfă label and is not the same as the former national freight transport operator, claimed Daniel Apostolache, in a press conference on October 15.

“Carpatica Feroviar is not CFR Marfă”, said the new director, quoted by Club Feroviar. He said he had owned up to the mistakes of the past and that the new company, if it was going to be a CFR Cargo, would be “that CFR Cargo from the good old days, many years ago”.

The head of the company announced that, in the seven months since Carpatica was established, it signed commercial contracts with various companies, including: OMV Petrom, Romcim, Azomureş, Cargo, Socar, Malbi Trans, Rofersped. 80% of the shipping business will be in areas such as grain, coal and oil.

The new company Carpatica Feroviar Romania aims to occupy 30% of the rail freight transport market and aims for a turnover of at least 700 million lei from 2026, with a sustainable annual growth of 10%, the general director also said, quoted by Club Feroviar.

At the beginning of November, the Minister of Transport, Ciprian Şerban, said that he was considering a unification of the state railway companies, following the model of some countries in the region.

The reunification of the companies would bring a multitude of benefits, the minister claimed. Operating costs would be reduced by 25%, European funds would be attracted much more easily and those unnecessary money flows between companies would disappear, said Şerban, quoted by Club Feroviar. The separation of the railway companies was done in 1998.

CFR Marfă has big problems and the number of employees has decreased constantly

CFR Marfă now has 3,000 employees and total debts of over 4.7 billion lei.

The state-owned company had 32,000 employees in 1998, 17,000 in 2009, peaked at under 9,000 in 2013 and fell to less than 4,000 in 2021.

CFR Marfă estimated, in a document from May, quoted by News.ro, losses of 4 million lei for this year, with total revenues of 820 million lei.

The document also showed that the company is preparing to go into insolvency this year, after being in the preventive arrangement procedure for five years until March 12, 2025. The outstanding payments were estimated at 3.11 billion lei at the end of this year.

It must be said that other European countries have not let their national rail freight operator decay. The largest profile company in the EU is Deutsche Bahn Cargo, and the second is PKP Cargo from Poland. And countries like Austria and Lithuania have strong operators in their regions.

CFR Marfă is “in a critical financial situation”, the debts to the state have been increasing, and the turnover has been decreasing, according to an analysis by the RisCo company. The operator had total losses of over one billion lei in the last five years, the turnover decreased, and the decline has been going on for a long time, it was also said in the analysis.

How CFR Marfă's losses look in the last five years

⦁ 2020: -335,084,365 lei

⦁ 2021: -351,759,979 lei

⦁ 2022: -153,311,545 lei

⦁ 2023: -231,136,331 lei

⦁ 2024: -328,637,667 lei

Why are private operators opposed to the establishment of Carpatica Feroviar

The private transport operators oppose the establishment of new companies and said that it will be the successor of CFR Marfă and that the inefficient activity and administration full of defects will persist.

The operators also said that the strategic and military interest supported for the establishment of Carpatica Feroviar is not justified, because the private railway operators have assumed responsibility and demonstrated that they have the ability to support and solve any type of special, strategic or military transport by rail.

Private equity companies also said that, with a 70% share of the market, these companies can cover the needs that arise in crisis situations. Exactly these “crisis situations” were invoked in the memorandum supporting the establishment of Carpatica Feroviar.