Vintage Budapest - Revised Itinerary 4 to 11 September 2013 Budapest Join us for a week long stay in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. The highlight of our trip is a 3 day charter train hauled by ex-British Rail Class 56 locomotives. Built in the early 1980s a few of these locomotives have recently been shipped over to Hungary for use by private rail operator Floyd. Budapest is home to two World Heritage sites, one combining the castle district and the sight of both banks of the Danube, while the other one is Andrássy avenue that leads from the center of the Pest side to Heroe’s square where the huge Millenium Monument is to be found. Other highlights include a vintage tram tour, a trip on an original old metro unit, a visit to the steam hauled “Children’s Railway” and trip on a narrow gauge forestry line. All seven nights are spent at the 4* Golden Park Hotel. Top that off with an on-train restaurant offering a full meals service (on the 3 days of our special train). Itinerary Wednesday 4 September Direct flights from Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton and Birmingham direct to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. We will have a special coach transfer to our hotel – The Golden Park Hotel – a good 4 star hotel with character situated across the street from Budapest-Keleti station. The touristic center of the city and the Danube are only a few metro stops away. Thursday 5 September (B) This morning we take a three hour long sightseeing tour of Hungary’s capital by coach. Budapest is home to two World Heritage sites, one combining the castle district and the sight of both banks of the Danube, while the other one is Andrássy avenue that leads from the center of the Pest side to Heroe’s square where the huge Millenium Monument is to be found. During our sight-seeing tour we will also visit the Parliament building and Saint Steven’s Basilica, as well as one of the largest synagogues in Europe and the Vajdahunyad castle, which was originally constructed from cardboard in 1896. A fine view of the city will be provided from the fortress of Citadella above the famous spa in Hotel Gellért and we will also pass by the central food market hall and the National Museum. After the sight-seeing tour, we will visit the depot of the Millenium Underground line built in 1896, the first electric subway in continental Europe. We will traverse some of the above ground track that is not available for regular passengers and we will return to the city center on preserved Car Nr. 1, used by Emperor Franz Josef of the Austrian Habsburg house, on his visit to the city when he was reigning as King of Hungary. The afternoon will be free to discover the city at your leisure. Friday 6 September (B) Today we make a cultural day trip to the Danube Bend, a horseshoe curve shaped gap of the Danube north of Budapest. We begin with a coach trip to Szentendre, a pearl along the Danube. Several Serbian Orthodox churches remain in the town which also has a medieval center with narrow alleys. Szentendre is also known as a home to artists and hosts several museums. Late morning we continue our coach trip with a short hop to the castle of Visegrád, a former summer residence for the Hungarian kings.The partially restored castle is situated on top of a hill overlooking the Danube Bend and offers marvellous views of the river and the surrounding hills. Following our visit to the castle, we will make a lunch stop at one of the fine restaurants along the Danube where you will be able to have lunch.We then use a ferry and cross on the northern side of the Danube and drive just a few minutes to Kismaros, terminal of one of the many forestry narrow-gauge lines in Hungary. A diesel hauled charter train will take us uphill to Királyrét, an area visited by hikers and people going for a picnic at the foot of Hungary’s second highest hill range, the Börzsöny. We return to Kismaros with our train and transfer there to a scheduled main line train back to Budapest. Those on the 5 day “enthusiast tour” join this evening. Saturday 7 September (B) We start our first railtour in Hungary today, which is based on the former British Rail Class 56 diesel locomotives used by private operator Floyd. The company will have up to two operational Grids by the time of our visit and we are hopeful that we will be able to use both of them during the three railtour days. Carriages will be supplied by MÁV Nosztalgia, including a restaurant car. Plans for the three days have been altered from the initial drafts to make the days slightly shorter and to provide a more interesting routing. Yet, the first day of the railtours will be slightly longer than the others. This morning we are expecting to depart Budapest Keleti station at 7.30. Initially routed on the main line to Vienna that goes via Hegyeshalom, the train will take us through Ferencváros station which is the center of rail freight activity in Hungary. Be prepared to spot some locos of private rail operators or foreign railway companies (such as ÖBB, LTE and MRCE) on the left. We will continue on the only double-track Danube bridge in Hungary to Kelenföld where we junction off line 1 and join line 40 which connects Déli station with Pécs in the south of the country. Anybody arriving this morning may also join our train at Kelenföld station. After 40 minutes of mostly suburban lines, during which we pass Hungary’s only oil refinery at Százhalombatta, we enter single line working at Pusztaszabolcs where the maintenance base of the Stadler Flirt EMUs is also located. Furthermore, this is the junction of two branch lines, one going towards Lake Balaton and the other to Dunaújváros, another town with heavy industry along the Danube. In the next half an hour we pass two further junctions at Sárbogárd and Rétszilas and, beginning a tortous route, another 40 minutes later arrive to the station of Keszőhidegkút-Gyönk, junction of the branch line to Tamási. Once our locomotive has ran round, we traverse this pretty freigh-only line, however as it is out of use, a speed restriction of 10 km/h will be imposed on our train. Tamási used to be the junction of the branch line from Csajág to Dombóvár, closed in 1990-1992. This line is now lifted between Dombóvár and Enying. Running around in Tamási again, we return to the mainline and continue to the junction and important rail hub of Dombóvár, which is also the location of one of the biggest depots in Western Hungary. We continue with single line working and at very slow speeds (for a European Rail corridor) on the line towards Gyékényes, as far as Kaposvár. Here we junction off to the diesel line to Fonyód, another pretty line among small rolling hills, slowly approaching Lake Balaton. At Fonyód, we join the former Southern Railway (opened in 1861 between Pragersko [in Slovenia] and Budapest, giving its name to Déli station) and continue on ever lasting single track lines to circumvent the lake. At Balatonfenyves, we pass the last remaining narrow-gauge line operated by MÁV (Hungarian State Railways) outside Budapest, heading off on 760 mm tracks to Somogyszentpál on our left. At Balatonszentgyörgy, we junction off the main line and continue along the Lake to Keszthely, a city that is often called the capital of Lake Balaton. We again leave the overhead wires here and after half an hour arrive to Tapolca, once home to the fleet of Hungarian NOHAB locos. The depot here now houses only a couple of rail equipment. Our loco runs around for the last time today and we have 45 minutes to stretch our legs. A buffet is located jus toutside the station. From Tapolca, we continue along the northern shores of Lake Balaton, passing typical wine regions such as Mount Badacsony and Balatonfüred-Csopak. As the summer season will already be over at the time of our visit, most beaches and camping sites will now be empty but in case of good weather, Saturday afternoons can still produce lots of visitors in the area. After two hours on this scenic diesel line, we climb above the lake and pass the short tunnel at Balatonkenese and then continue along rolling landscape to again meet the former Southern Railway at Szabadbattyán. However, instead of doing the now direct route to Budapest via Székesfehérvár, we will stay on what was the original MÁV line from Budapest to Tapolca. Finished in 1911, this was routed via Pusztaszabolcs and the next section to Börgönd is now an unused line, placed into traffic only when used as a diversionary route or if special trains need to pass here. From Börgönd, we continue to Pusztaszabolcs then retrace our steps from the morning in the last hour of today’s railtour . Our expected time of arrival at Budapest-Keleti is 20.20. Sunday 8 September (B) This morning will require a slightly earlier departure from Budapest-Keleti station at 06.55 and once again we will be routed via Ferencváros and Kelenföld to the line from Budapest-Déli to Nagykanizsa (former Southern railway). Boarding the train at Kelenföld will be possible only upon prior notification of the train staff. Past Kelenföld, we will hit new track, once junctioned off the line to Pécs at Érd-felső. We continue along the Southern railway, which has been thoroughly rebuilt in the past years as far as Székesfehérvár. Allowing us a fast run, we will pass Lake Velence and arrive to Székesfehérvár where a big roundhouse is situated on our left as, we arrive to the station. Depending on which track we will be routed through, we might pass under the bridge style signal tower, which will soon be demolished with the upcoming rebuilding of the station. From Székesfehérvár, we continue along single track lines towards the Bakony hills via Veszprém and onwards to the Slovenian border at Hodos. Climbing gently uphill, we pass the junctions of Hajmáskér and Veszprém and are booked to stop for several crossings, among them at the summit of the line at Szentgál. After descending towards Ajka (home of aluminium and chrystalware industry), we pass red sludge reservoirs and the scene of the terrible 2010 spillage from one of these reservoirs, the effect of which can still be observed on the trunks of trees and walls of houses as far as Devecser. The sight of lonely Mount Somló (home to the famous sheep’s tail grape variety) will accompany us as far as Boba. Here we do the avoiding line which only sees one pair of scheduled passenger trains a day but with electric haulage, and continue on single tracks via the junctions of Ukk and Zalabér-Batyk, on the recently rebuilt line towards Hodos. At Zalaszentiván, we arrive to GySEV territory. The Hungarian-Austrian company took over management of several railway lines in north-western Hungary in 2006-2011 and we continue under their premises as far as Győr. First, we junction off the Hodos line towards Szombathely, passing a small summit near Vasvár along the way. The line to Szombathely (and onwards to Csorna and Hegyeshalom) is to be electrified by 2015. Szombathely has a fair sized depot and a railway works. We continue along the unit-only line to Kőszeg, which once used to continue across the border into Austria. This line is extremely rare track for hauled passenger services! Our loco will run round at Kőszeg and the nonce more, after returning to Szombathely. We produce another departure from Szombathely and continue along GySEV tracks to Csorna, route of the ex-DB Class 232 diesels that are now used on IC services to Budapest. At Csorna we join GySEV’s electrified main line from Sopron to Győr, which is expected to be double tracked in the next few years. Arriving to Győr, we will first pull in to the freight-only GySEV station that is only used by passenger services every few years in case MÁV staff are on strike. Then we traverse the other side of the triangle from Győr GySEV station, that connects directly into Győr station. We finish our day by a speedy mainline dash on the Budapest–Hegyeshalom main line with speeds of up to 120 km/hour. At Győr, we may observe the line to Celldömölk branching off to the right. Almásfüzitő is the junction of line 4 to Esztergom but the train will likely use the fast line that avoids the station. At Komárom, the line from Slovakia joins in from the left and line 5 to Székesfehérvár branches off to the right. We continue via Tatabánya and pass through the Vértes hill range, allowing our locomotive to perform some fast climbing. We then descend into the suburbs of Budapest and soon reach Kelenföld from where we travel back to Budapest-Keleti to arrive at 17.59. Monday 9 September (B) This morning will see another early-ish departure at 06.55 from Budapst-Keleti station, in order to reach the first destination of our special train at the Visonta power plant, before some scheduled freight operations block the freight-only line leading there. We first head towards the east on the main line to Miskolc. Just outside Keleti station we pass the entrance of former Józsefváros station and Északi railway works. After the triangle towards Ferencváros, we pass over the line from Budapest-Nyugati to the Ukrainian border at Záhony (via Szolnok and Debrecen). A connecting track called Királyvágány (King’s track) connects in from this line on the left at Kőbánya-felső, from where there are two double track lines continuing to Rákos, one passing over the other. The lower line has a triangular junction leading towards Budapest-Nyugati and the international main line to Szob, this is used by some EC trains. At Rákos, the other main line to Szolnok (continuing towards Lökösháza and into Romania) branches off to the right. We begin a gentle climb and soon pass Gödöllő, home to the Austro-Hungarian emperor’s summer palace. The station building on the left has an historic looking attachment that once served as the imperial waiting room. Also on the left is the terminus of the green suburban HÉV trains from Budapest. After a bit more of tortous trackage, we pass Aszód, junction of the branches towards Vác and Balassagyarmat. The next major junction is Hatvan where the lines to Szolnok and Somoskőújfalu (and into Slovakia towards Zvolen) diverge. The depot is still visible on the left and a plinthed steam loco in front of the station building on the right. However, the former huge sugar factory (just past the station, on the right) is now bulldozed. As we head towards the junction of Nagyút, we first pass Vámosgyörk station where the electrified branch to Gyöngyös branches off to the north. At Nagyút, our loco runs round and we do the electrified freight-only branch to Visonta. We will have 75 minutes here due to the procession of a couple of freight trains. In the meantime, we hope to be able to traverse the length of the internal rail system, passing by the coal wagon emptying facilities and the depot. Once our loco runs round and the line is cleared, we return to Nagyút and our loco again needs to quickly run round to retrace our steps back to Vámosgyörk. Here we junction off to the other branch from the station, leading us to Újszász. On our way we pass mostly flat countryside and the base of MÁV FKG who have a big fleet of track maintenance machines at Jászkisér. At Újszász, we join the main line from Budapest to Lökösháza and after a few kilometres branch off to the right, onto the freight-only line leading us to Szolnok-Magasfogadó, the elevated freight yards of this huge complex. Once again our loco needs to run round and we then depart on another freight-only chord onto the Budapest-Záhony main line. Passing just one stop, we branch off onto the Cegléd avoiding line and travel on the single track main line as far as Kecskemét. Just south of the station, a recently built freight branch connects into the newly opened Mercedes factory and we will travel on this line as far as possible – if permission is granted, all the way into the factory site. Once back to Kecskemét station, we depart back towards Cegléd and finish off the last main line kilometres of our tour into Budapest. We will make a brief stop at Ferihegy airport stop at exactly 5pm to enable anybody who wishes to catch a late flight back home to do so. Terminal 2 is a 10-minute bus ride away. From Ferihegy, we expect to be routed via the so-called ring railway, i.e. via Zugló, Rákosrendező, Rákosszentmihály and Kőbánya-felső into Budapest-Keleti. Going via Kőbánya-Kispest and Ferencváros is also theoretically possible but requires the loco to run round and thus in practice may prove to take longer. Our booked arrival into Keleti station is 18.05. Tuesday 10 September (B,D) Those on the 5 day “enthusiast tour” leave us this morning. If you are on the full holiday then today we start by touring the tram network of Budapest. Line 14 starts in a side street by our hotel and we will board our chartered tram here. The type UV trams date from the late 1940s but their roots go back to 1939. The type was withdrawn from service in 2007 with only a couple of cars preserved. We follow an unusual route via Blaha Lujza square. And eventually end at the depot of the 760-mm-gauge Childrens’s Railway. We walk to Hűvösvölgy station where a steam hauled charter train will be awaiting us, lack of fire hazards permitting. We will ride along the railway which was built for the 70th birthday of Stalin. It has a viaduct, a tunnel and signalling like main line railways. The end of the line is near the peak of Széchenyi Hill. A short walk will allow us to board the cog-wheel railway, making our descend back into town. The afternoon is free. In the evening we meet up for a farewell dinner. Wednesday 11 September (B) Morning coach transfer to the airport for our return flights.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:40:59 +0000
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