Photo of the Week: Narrow-gauge Freight on the Lillafüred Forestry Railway

The D02-508 is a class Mk48 diesel-hydraulic locomotive that serves on the 76-cm-gauge Lillafüred Forest Railway (Lillafüredi Erdei Vasút). Though freight service is discontinued and only tourist excursion trains are operated on the two-line network building trains need some goods cars and therefore sometimes train enthusiasts can organize colourful photo charters with them. On this occasion the Mk48 pulled the freight and the photographers travelled in a separate train hauled by a class C50 small diesel locomotive:

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.

A colourful railroad before it went out of service

Line 76: Diósjenő to Romhány, Hungary

The beginning of the year is always problematic for me as a teacher to find time for writing. Now that we are practically locked down due to the Corona virus it is time to go on a trip in our imagination by a train instead of actually taking one. The best way to stay safe is to stay at home.

If I had to travel in my head then an obvious choice for me was a railway I could not travel on in real life anymore. This post is probably going to get rather sentimental, I hope you do not mind. Some railways I never even had the chance to travel on, some I missed out on before closure due to being obsessed with other things or not believing they were really going to do that. This line is different: I spent a lot of time on this railway and I think I can be content with the number of photos I have of it, also with the interesting events and trains I had captured on it before it was closed in March 2007.
Normally the blog would invite you on some of the most spectacular railway journeys in Europe. Despite the hilly scenery, this line is not a huge spectacle; it may be nice compared to the lowlands that dominate Hungary, but you will not feel the urge to immediately go and walk the railway now that trains are absent.

Retro Liveries of the Locomotives of the Hungarian State Railways

Retro is a term often used in Eastern and Central Europe for things that are left behind from the end of the 20th century, or, in an increasing number of cases, have been recreated to resemble the typical looks of those things. Unlike 'old', retro doesn't imply that the thing is incapable of doing its job anymore, just identifies it as something which has a unique style to it because of the year it was made.

When talking about trains, we must differentiate between retro vehicles and historic vehicles, both can mean locomotives, carriages or multiple units and railcars. Something is historic if it is kept in a museum or is only used on special occasions. They are often privately owned or belong to an identity separate from the railway companies that serve the usual traffic in the region. Retro, on the other hand, usually means a vehicle that still has some daily work to do and is actively used to earn revenue in ways which are not connected to the tool being older than the average stock. To put it straight: they carry passengers just like any other vehicle belonging to their operator or are used for daily freight or departmental trains. But they all wear a special livery that can turn back the wheel of time for the people who remember, force some good memories to resurface and add a significant bit to the class and mood of rail travel. In the UK this kind of repainting is often called a heritage livery.

The Hungarian network is not the only one to have retro trains, but the number of such vehicles has greatly increased recently and for the second year in a row, passenger operator MÁV-START has organized special Retro Weekends for enthusiasts and the general public to enjoy, thus bringing attention to the existence of these nice vehicles.

Bzmot 343 (117 343 in the current numbering scheme) is allocated to the MÁV-START depot at Balassagyarmat and wears the livery these tiny railcars had worn until the mid-90s refurbishment and engine replacement.

Retro Weekends at Lake Balaton in Hungary

Retro locomotives become increasingly popular with Eastern European railways. A retro locomotive is not a historic vehicle: it is still in operation, even if not in everyday but departmental use, but it is painted in a livery resembling a previous era of the railway, in many cases the livery in which the locomotive had been delivered by the factory.
MÁV has only recently jumped on the bandwaggon but now taking part fiercely: this year two, so-called retro weekends are organised, during which the regular, usually more reliable and modern locomotives are swapped for some retro units on the scenic line running on the Northern side of Lake Balaton. The lake is extremely popular among Hungarians as a beach but has a strong culture and lots of vineyards, meaning that tourists soar in the summer season, making sure the trains will have an impressive length and the diesel locomotives will be forced to emit nice smoke and an easy to distinguish roar.
The first such weekend started only yesterday, with MÁV-START 408 224 (ex M40,224) hauling a fast train to the end of the railway, Tapolca, which is about ten kilometres from the shores of the lake and is situated in a basin surrounded by remnants of volcanoes, which is good for the wine and also creates a remarkable scenery. If you are interested in taking part, either by taking photos or videos of the spectacular consists or would like to travel on one of the trains, you are not late in any way: August 2nd to 4th is the next occasion. Before any details, let's see what yesterdays train looked like on photo...

Photo of the Week: False History at Lake Balaton

MÁV owns a number of locomotives that are still in regular service but are in a historic livery. This one is different: all Nohabs have been stopped and this one is used by a special institute of MÁV for moving the track measurement car. Its livery is not at all historic - the stripes on the side are made up and no Nohab actually had this coat of arms on its nose. For a few years MÁV had used this locomotive to pull one of the regular fast trains as a form of retro and advertisement but does not follow this practice anymore. The photo was taken in 2013, so its ancient wibe is nothing but Photoshopped.

Photo of the Week: Frame of Flowers

This may look like just an ordinary flower-framed photo, but it was taken on the Budapest - Esztergom railway in Hungary which has since been completely rebuilt, and therefore this photo location at the boundary of Budapest and Urom does not exist anymore.

Photo of the Week | The V43 at Exhibition

The V43 1110 is exhibited at the University of Óbuda, one of the most renowned districts of Budapest, Hungary and had replaced the V60,003 as a piece of exhibit by the University. The University has been named after Kálmán Kandó, developer of the 50 Hz railway electrification and the V60,003 on exhibit here had been one of the original Ganz-Kandó locomotives developed for the system. The locomotive has been moved to the Füsti - Hungarian Railway History Park and a more common class V43 locomotive has been brought in as a replacement. To date, this is the only V43 locomotive not only as an exhibit but anyway as all other surviving instances had been renumbered class 430, 431, 432 or 433.