Refurbishing Passenger Carriages in the Bulgarian State Railways

The paper presents the problem of refurbishing passenger carriages for the needs of BDZ as a way to increase the speed, reliability, comfort and the quality of the services in the Bulgarian railways. That is an appropriate solution under the conditions of economic crisis in the country. The carriages produced in Bulgaria have turned to be unsuitable for refurbishing so a number of used carriages have been imported from Germany and Austria. Refurbishing has been done at the Plant for Carriages in Drianovo according to the European standards and environmental requirements. The problem examined in the paper is of great importance for the quality of the mass passenger transport in Bulgaria and its improvement as a requirement for Bulgaria's integration to the European Union structures.