Romania domestic train questions

[chooey]

In a few weeks I'm off to Romania (by train of course!). We'll ignore the 25%-30% fare "increase" courtesy of the ongoing Brexit farce and the plunging GBP ( ), and instead I want to ask about Romanian domestic trains.
I found this from four years ago which is reassuring and useful - https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/romania-advice.103719/

Questions:
* If I book online on the CFR website, do I *have* to print the ticket? The website is saying you should, but it also uses very poor English, so that may just be a translation issue. Will I be ok with just the ticket number (I have no smartphone to show the ticket)?

* Is it true that you have to book almost all trains online because stations only sell some tickets, and only for trains within the next two hours?

* Are the domestic sleepers any good? The country seems riddled with them (oh to have more and cheaper sleepers in the UK) - https://rail.cc/en/night-train/romania/ro

* Assuming I plan on doing a fair amount of train travel - say 3-5 domestic sleepers, and a bunch of day trips, are there any ticket-deals that work like the rovers here? I can see some on their website but it's not really clear what the differences are. I note they don't give discounts for sleeper/couchette supplements anyway (or the ~£1 "reservation fee").

* Are there any maps anywhere that show which routes are operated by CFR and which are private?

Any other tips/suggestions welcome!
Thanks

 

[30907]

Welcome, and apologies if you know this already:
If your German, or your translation engine, is up to it, you might like to have a look at https://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/list.php?030.
The search engine isn't the best, but putting in [RO (without the second bracket) should bring up a good few trip reports including interior pix.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I think the only trains you can book on line via the CFR site are those which are reservable (ie long-distance IR/IC/EC trains not local R trains).
For a trip 15 months ago I booked on line and printed out the e-tickets, or bought at stations.
I think you need the bar code to make an e-ticket valid.
You get discounts for booking more than a certain length of time in advance (10-25%, plus another 5% for booking on line more than a week in advance).
https://www1.cfrcalatori.ro/en/discounts-when-buying-in-advance/

One exception to this is the open access service provided by Softrans (Bucuresti-Brasov/Craiova/Constanza), where you can simply buy on board.
http://www.softrans.ro/mersul-trenurilor.html
I *think* these are the only ones not provided by CFR.

I see the CFR web site has been revamped since I last travelled, but I expect it's still quirky.
I had no problems booking online tickets though (except the booking horizon is only 1 month).
I also used to be able to find CFR's rail map on their site, but this is very similar:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Romania-cfr-pl.svg

My one problem while there was engineering work, which periodically disrupts routes with little notice.
There were and probably still are major upgrades going on on the route through Sighisoara.

 

[Redonian]

Yes. Certainly have to print off any tickets you can buy on the CFR website. As LNW -GW Joint says it is a bit quirky but I had no real problems with it. It's not possible to buy tickets on line for more local trains but I had no difficulty at ticket offices even at out of the way places.
Regio Calatori (formerly Regio Trans) is another open access operator. They operate on a number of routes. I booked a ticket on line with them when they were Regio Trans. Bit of a faff as the website is only in Romanian but it worked. I guess you can still book on line with them. They had a separate booking office at Timisoara Nord Station so I guess that might be the case elsewhere.
I took several sleeper trains. The sleeping cars were old but comfortable. From Timisoara to Iasi I was the only passenger in the sleeping car all the way. I found booking single occupancy on sleepers to be cheap.