On 18 June, the government in Bucharest approved the technical-economic indicators of a project with a technical name — “Rehabilitation of the Roman–Iași–Border railway line – Phase 1 – Electrification of the Iași–Border line.” Behind the dry wording lies a step Ungheni has awaited for years: the approval opens the way to the tender for the design and execution of works to electrify the line coming from Iași up to the Prut.
It is only the Romanian half of the story. Together with the section on the left bank, the cross-border project is to give the Republic of Moldova something it has never had: its first kilometre of electrified railway. And that first kilometre enters the country through Ungheni.
Through Ungheni, over the “Eiffel” bridge
Ungheni is no random choice — it is, by definition, the rail node between the two countries. This is where the changeover happens between the European gauge (1435 mm) and the Russian one (1520 mm), this is where the international station is, and this is where the old metal bridge over the Prut, nicknamed the “Eiffel” bridge, raised back in the 1870s, runs. (It is not to be confused with the Ungheni–Zagarancea road bridge under construction — they are two different works.)
On the Moldovan side, the state secretary at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, Mircea Păscăluță, explained that the works involve about 2 kilometres of electric line in the Ungheni station area and the rehabilitation of the “Eiffel” bridge. On the modernized line, he said, passenger trains will be able to run at up to 140 km/h — against stretches of the current network where trains move even at 30.
Who pays and how much
The step approved now in Bucharest concerns the Romanian side: about 495 million lei for electrifying the 23.4 kilometres between Iași and the border, half from European funds (the “Connecting Europe Facility” programme), half from the Romanian Transport Ministry’s budget, with an execution period estimated at 18 months after the tender.
For the cross-border project as a whole, the European Commission put up a grant of over 33 million euros, awarded in November 2025, for the joint Iași–Ungheni line of about 25 kilometres, including the junction over the Prut. The difference between “23.4 km” and “25 km” is not an error: the first figure is the Romanian part up to the border, the second also includes the crossing of the Prut, towards Ungheni station. The Moldovan share of the investment is, by comparison, modest. The timeline cited by officials takes the works towards 2028.
What the promise rests on
The picture has a less bright side too, which explains why such a project matters. The Republic of Moldova today has not a single kilometre of electrified railway. The Moldovan Railway is going through a deep crisis: rail freight transport has halved in a decade — from about 9–10 million tonnes a year to roughly 5 million in 2025, according to National Bureau of Statistics data.
A necessary clarification, so that no false expectations arise: a Chișinău–Ungheni–Iași passenger service already exists, but it runs on an unelectrified line, on the Russian gauge, with a diesel locomotive. The electrified line we are talking about now is something else — it is yet to be built, and the European link further on, towards Chișinău, is for now only at the study stage — and that study officially began in Brussels on 23 June 2026.
Nor are critical voices lacking. Oleg Tofilat, former director of the Moldovan Railway, points out that the feasibility study was not submitted to public debate and argues that the electric line should have been extended to Berești station, near Ungheni, for more freight and passenger opportunities. And the electrification itself depends, on the Moldovan side, on rolling stock Moldova does not yet have — and which, at the first stage, Romania will provide.
Moldova’s rail gateway to the EU
Beyond the figures and the caveats, the stake for Ungheni is both symbolic and practical. Through the town on the Prut — alongside the future road bridge and the customs post under construction — also runs the European transport corridor linking Moldova to the TEN-T network. The country’s first electrified railway enters Moldova not somewhere at random, but exactly here, over the century-and-a-half-old bridge across the Prut. For a town that has always defined itself as a crossing point, it is confirmation that it remains the gateway — this time, an electrified one.
The administrative step and the figures on the Romanian side come from the Government of Romania’s communications (18 June 2026, relayed by the state agency Agerpres). The European grant and the project’s description as “the first electrified section in Moldova” come from the European Commission (DG MOVE). The details on the Moldovan side — the 2 km, the “Eiffel” bridge, the 140 km/h speed — and the former CFM director’s critical position come from an RFE/RL Moldova report, with officials on the record. The rail freight data are the National Bureau of Statistics’. The exact number of the decision and the date of the design tender were not public at the time of writing.