CORRECTED - Half speed ahead on decrepit Romanian roads

(Corrects first paragraph to read 1900s, not 1990s)

By Radu Marinas

MEDGIDIA, Romania (Reuters) - In the early 1900s, it took a steam train three hours to get from the Romanian capital Bucharest to the Black Sea. Now an electric train does it in six.

It's not just the tourists who care.

Every party is writing road and rail investment large in its campaign for Sunday's election, knowing that decrepit transport threatens to cancel out some of Romania's few economic advantages: its location at a trading crossroads, and the low labour costs that have until now encouraged foreign investment.

The scale of investment and reforms needed is forbidding, but most economists know that without them, the foreign money that has been supporting Romania's consumption, already dwindling, may dry up altogether.

With a history of red tape, administrative failings, corruption and political reluctance to finance long-term projects, the outlook is grim.

There was a warning in June, when Germany's Daimler chose Hungary over Romania to site an 800 million euro (661 million pounds) Mercedes plant, swayed in part by access to road links.

"Transportation should be your number one priority," said U.S. ambassador Nicholas Taubman. "Romania will not be competitive with either your neighbours or western European trading partners until its 'road to Europe' is finished."