The Situation of Train Travel in Hungary

Currently, Hungary is going through gradual release after a semi-serious lockdown state, however, some restrictions are broken down more difficultly than others. Similarly to some other East-Central-Europe states, Hungary managed to cancel most of the capabilities of the Covid-19 virus to spread and the only major concern is the infection of many hospital workers and the internal spreading of the infection across different parts of the hospital, resulting in patients of other illnesses to be returning home infected; often to homes for the elderly or homeless shelters. Because of the very low level of infections in the outside world, the government's primary concern is the re-introduction of the virus through foreign visitors, so for any Hungarians returning from abroad a two-week quarantine at home is ordered.

Daily commuting is possible to some of the neighbouring states like Austria (without limits) or Slovakia (to 30 km distance from the border station). Other international travel is mostly prohibited or requires quarantine on both entry to the foreign country and re-entry home. Five designated states can have free business trips.

All in all, the time is not convenient for international travel. In Hungary, almost all domestic trains operate on the public network, but international trains only operate from Győr to Hegyeshalom as part of the Vienna S-Bahn and there is a very limited international high-speed traffic between Budapest and Vienna. All railjets are cut back to Wien Hauptbahnhof or Flughafen Schwechat (the Vienna Airport station).

Tourist Railways

Another segment of rail traffic which is nullified by the pandemic is the set of tourist railways, mainly narrow-gauge and forestry railways. Currently, the only narrow-gauge railway in operation is the MÁV-START's Balatonfenyves to Somogyszentpál line as it is a public service; all other forest railways are closed, as well as the Budapest Children's Railway (Gyermekvasút).

As of 09.05. three forest railways will reopen in connection with this week's easing of the movement restrictions in the provincial counties (all counties except Pest and the city of Budapest). These railways are the Lillafüred Forest Railway (at Miskolc), the Pálháza Forest Railway (between Pálháza and Rostalló) and the Almamellék Forest Railway (to Sasrét). Next Saturday is going to see the reopening of the lines of the Egererdő Zrt. timber company and the Szilvásvárad, the Felsőtárkány lines and both lines of the Gyöngyös-based Mátravasút are going to return to action. As of the time of writing this article, there is no information on the opening of other railways.

We sincerely hope to be able to open our borders to at least travellers (both business and leisure) in June, to at least the countries in our vicinity that also manage to control their levels of infection. That means, that for some of you Hungary is not going to be a desirable target for a while, but hopefully with other travel opportunities limited, many Slovakian, Polish, Austrian, Croatian, Slovenian and Romanian tourists will visit our beautiful and welcoming country this summer. Our current understanding is that the EU+Schengen external borders are to remain closed for at least part of summer, but my personal opinion is that they are staying like that most of this year.

One additional note for those in Slovakia: the Čierny Balog network is also restarting.

• To see a selection of highlights of the narrow-gauge tourist railways of Hungary, please see my gallery on my homepage, benbe.hu.
• Timetables of Északerdő (Lillafüred and Pálháza lines)
• Timetables of Egererdő (Szilvásvárad, Gyöngyös and Felsőtárkány networks)
• Timetable and compulsory electronic registration for the Mecsekerdő (Almamellék network)