Two simultaneous infrastructure closures in Serbia and Romania threaten to make rail freight between Türkiye and the European Union impossible for months, with the first shutdown set to begin in autumn 2026.

ÖBB Rail Cargo Group (RCG), which runs block trains and intermodal trains on separate corridors between Türkiye and the EU, says the overlap between the two projects would force it to stop all services. "This is critical – not only for RCG but for rail freight in general. If both closures are happening at the same time, we need to stop all trains to Serbia and Europe", RCG representatives told RailFreight.com.

The two closures strike at the heart of Türkiye's only two rail connections to the EU. RCG's block trains transit through Serbia via Bulgaria, while its intermodal trains run through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Under normal conditions, the arrangement provides redundancy: if one corridor fails, the other can partially absorb cancellations. Simultaneous closures remove that safety net entirely.

Two projects, one window

In Serbia, the infrastructure manager will digitalise and electrify the line between Niš and Dimitrovgrad — the only non-electrified stretch between the Bulgarian–Turkish border and the EU. The works are scheduled to last 200 days, starting in autumn 2026 if planning holds.

Romania follows with a ten-month closure starting in February 2027 on the line between Giurgiu Nord and Ruse in Bulgaria. That timeline creates a substantial overlap with the Serbian project, and it is this collision that has operators alarmed.

RCG's Turkish branch laments the absence of international coordination. Romania and Serbia "do not consider the concerns" of operators enough, its representatives believe. Both countries draw EU funding for the works, but that money carries deadlines: miss them and the financing from Brussels disappears. The operators, in the meantime, carry the commercial burden of the disruption.

Questionable returns on disruption

Operators might accept the pain if the works delivered clear capacity or reliability gains. RCG is not convinced they will. Trains on the route already run without delays — Serbia is reached from Türkiye in three days, a pace RCG considers satisfactory.

The recent history of infrastructure upgrades in the region supports that scepticism. When Türkiye began upgrading the Kapıkule rail yard, adding eight tracks for a total of 25, capacity initially dropped by 30-40%, from ten daily trains to six or seven. The situation has since improved, and Türkiye can now dispatch 25 trains per day towards Bulgaria — but Bulgaria has only ten tracks available, so trains still queue at the border.

The real fixable bottleneck sits at the Bosphorus. Trains must use the Marmaray tunnel under the strait, which allows only four or five trains per night. RCG says that is not enough. The INRAIL project should eventually relieve the constraint: within five years, a bridge north of Istanbul is set to be equipped with railway track, boosting capacity across the strait to 50 million tonnes.

Road is ready to take the traffic

Even once the infrastructure works are done, rail faces a formidable competitor for Türkiye's freight. "Türkiye has the biggest and youngest truck fleet in all of Europe", RCG notes, with an average truck age of just two years.

"We will continue to fight for a higher modal share for rail", the representatives say. "That means convincing the client that we can do it better, against better rates." But construction works can undo that pitch quickly. "If we cannot cross Romania or Serbia, or if we take ten days to reach Hungary, then no one will sign up for that." Trucks reach Hungary in three days and could prove both faster and cheaper if rail conditions deteriorate.

RCG is calling for a level playing field between rail and road, with infrastructure measures and regulatory frameworks that support fair competition and let rail freight contribute fully to Europe's climate and transport goals.

The financial backing for the region's rail ambitions is not in doubt — the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and others have committed billions of euros to the Istanbul bypass alone. Whether operators survive the construction period to benefit from it depends largely on whether Serbia and Romania adjust their timelines before autumn 2026.