As a result of world economy growth and technical progress in this century, the amount of shipments hazardous for the social and natural environment has grown. To protect from the undesirable effects of such shipments, the United Nationals have produced a number of severe measures, with technical and legislative character, that apply to international traffic. Following these measures allows the safe transportation of hazardous goods in railway, road, naval, air, multi-mode traffic, and the safe handling with mechanized and manual means. These measures include the packaging, loading and the implementation of modern transportation technologies (containers, boxes and packages).

The Romanian Railways started applying these international rules to domestic railway transportation in the sixth decade of the 20th century.

In order to update domestic regulations, the Government on August 19, 1999 issued Ordinance 49 on the transportation of hazardous goods on the railway.

The regulations currently in force are those on the international railway transportation of hazardous goods (RID), annex 1 to appendix B - uniform Rules on the international railways transportation of goods Contract (CIM) - and the Convention on international transports (COTIF), signed in Berne on May 9, 1980, and ratified by Romania through Decree 100/1983.

Ordinance 49/1999 regulates the ongoing enforcement of RID in domestic traffic. This ordinance appoints the Transports Ministry as the state authority responsible with the application of COTIF and RID rules.

The technical norms stipulate that the transportation of hazardous materials and objects on the CFR network, besides RID, other domestic regulations need to be respected, such as those referring to the transportation of nuclear and radioactive materials, arms and ammunition, as well as environment protection, issued by Romanian technical surveillance bodies.

According to Ordinance 49/1999, the unitary application of RID provisions will be commissioned to the Inter-ministry Commission for the railway transportation of hazardous goods, chaired by a representative of the Transports Ministry.

Authorized transporters can close agreements that deviate from RID stipulations on the admittance of hazardous goods to transportation. These agreements need to be approved by the Transports Ministry, at the proposal of CFR Freight, after an authorization by the Romanian Railway Authority or the Romanian technical supervision body, and of the above-mentioned Inter-ministry Committee.

Considering the high degree of hazard these shipments pose on the environment, grave deviations from the shipment regulations are regarded as crimes and are prosecuted according to penal law. The other deviations, which pose less threat to the environment, are treated as contravention and punished according to the law.

In the case when these infringements incur damages to the railway, the clients are obliged to repair these damages, regardless of the legal penalties. Additional fares are charged if the travel registry does not state the correct, exact and precise data on the goods being shipped so as to avoid RID requirements on specific transportation techniques.

The existence and application of these regulations prove that Romania now has a modern legislation on the transportation of hazardous goods, a legislation that meets the European Community acquis.