"We are preoccupied with improving working conditions"

Valentin Carstea Timisoara Department Railway Public Transportation General Manager

 

 

 

Studies:

The Bucharest Transport Faculty at the TTTF section (the 1982 class)

Occupation: Engineer

Positions occupied after graduation:

· 03.11.1975 - 15.09.1977 - SCB rigger CT1 Craiova, CF Craiova Regional Department
· 01.09.1982 - 01.09.1984 - stage engineer CFR North Resita Railway Station
· 01.09.1984 - 02.12.1985 - IV Engineer at the CFR North Resita Railway Station
· 02.12.1985 - 01.02.1986 - IV Engineer at the CFR North Timisoara Railway Station
· 01.02.1986 - 01.08.1987 - Chief Co-ordinator Station at the Timisoara Liebling Station
· 01.08.1987 - 20.01.1990 - Station Chief at the CF Ronat Triage Timisoara
· 30.01.1990 - 15.03.1993 - Deputy Chief Station at the CF North Timisoara
· 15.03.1993 - 01.12.1994 - Regional Reviser at the CF Timisoara CS Service
· 01.12.1994 - 08.04.1997 - Service Chief CF Timisoara CS Service
· 08.04.1997 - 01.10.1998 - Division Chief at the CF Timisoara Passengers Division
· 01.10.1998 - now - SC Regional Timisoara Department Railway Public Transportation General Manager

Railway Journal: What is the reason for the creation of the short distance units?
Valentin Carstea: The Regional Commercial Public Railway Transportation SA of Timisoara headquartered in Timisoara, str. Garii de Nord nr 2 A, et 1, Timis county, was created by the Government Ordinance no. 1046/23.12.1999 under Article no 1 of the 182/1999 governmental decision. It is a commercial unit based on shares. It functions according to the Romanian laws and state and has as goal the railway public transportation in the public and national interest and the protection of the south-west of our country as well.
RJ: What is your unit activity field and with what personnel do you work?
VC: Our activity field includes counties as Timis, Arad, Caras Severin, Hunedoara, Mehedinti, up to the Orsova railway station, and Bihor up to the Ciumeghiu railway station. Our personnel is made of over 2200 employees, 2100 of them representing productive and operative personnel.
RJ: What problems are you confronting with and how do you hope to solve them?
VC: Our main problems are deeply rooted into the ex-organisation system as for example: trains' low comfort standards (cleaning, electricity, heating, sanitary equipment), the timing of the traffic, insuring the transport capacity according to the public's demands. Improving the transport timing and the comfort conditions will be achieved by increasing our exigencies for locomotives and wagons repairs and by monitoring the way the service companies are fulfilling their contracts regarding the cleaning of the trains.
RJ: What are your activity plans and what projects are currently running?
VC: The tasks laid before our company are visible in the activity contract with the Transport Ministry and concern mainly meeting the deadlines: shipped passengers, passengers/km and trains/km, the energy measured consume, taking into account the realisation of the working and transportation ways' productivity indices used to complete our main activity - public transportation.
RJ: What are the working conditions for your employees? Are your people satisfied or did you have to do some improvements?
VC: SCRTFPC is concerned all the time with the improvement of the working conditions. For that we even reconditioned the bedrooms for the personnel's use in the railway stations as Simeria, Oravita, Iam, Cenad, Arad, Lugoj, Caransebes and Savarsin. Presently the Brad, Petrosani, Gurahont bedrooms are being worked on and also, disinfecting procedures are underway in all bedrooms. In parallel repairs are being made at the heat plants in stations, locomotive depots and wagons revisions. At the same time we organise meetings with the union representatives to be aware of our people's needs, the problems they have at work and to establish the best way to deal with these problems.
RJ: What do you think the new year will bring?
VC: We mean to replace the locomotives with a great consumption that also have problems related to the heating units. We will replace them with automotive transportation. We would also want to improve the collaboration with the neighbouring railways regarding frontier traffic and more.

Reporting Cristina Sava