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The Day of the Children's Railway, 2010

Hier geht's zur deutschsprachigen Version / Kattints ide a magyar változathoz

The economical crisis in Hungary has had a single positive effect on me: because I'm unable to travel as much as earlier, I'm forced to live out my hobbies in and around my hometown, so I "re-discovered" the Children's Railway for myself.

After all it's pretty much a self-contained miniature copy of all hungarian railways, plus you can get some fresh air while walking along the tracks in the forest :)

April 10 also featured some "bonuses": all kinds of rolling stock was put to usage to celebrate the day of the railway. Even some "normal" trains were special that day, for example the GANZ railcoach (to the left) was doing normal courses (normally "normal" trains are operated with diesel engines). The C50 tractor (to the right) on the other hand was a rare sight, as normally it's not used in passenger service (it's a bit weak for that purpose).

The small thingie was towing an old carriage built in 1902 (for another railway of course: the Pioneer's Railway did not exist back then).

The main event was an extra long train, consisting of eight carriages - the longest I've ever seen here! Of course the steam engine would have been waaaaay too weak to move such a heavy train, so a diesel engine was included.

The train was longer than the Csillebérc station, so extra crowds of railwaymen were running up and down, supervising the movements.

Originally I planned to go home after the train left Csillebérc station, but then we heard that the long train will be disbanded and returned in two halves. This sounded interesting, so I stayed and filmed the traffic in the meantime.

For a while all things seemed normal (left), but then the steam engine returned with the heritage carriages. It left them on the passing tracks of Csillebérc (right), and headed for Széchenyi-hegy to load some water.

The GANZ railcoach again (still with a more modern carriage).

To the left: the second-shortest train of the day (after the C50 + the green carriage). To the right: and suddenly a diesel engien appeared with the other half of the long train (minus one carriage, which returned to Hűvösvölgy earlier).

Since the "modern carriages of the long train" + diesel engine + "heritage carriages of the long train" were still longer than the passing track of the station, some shunting had had to be done! First, the diesel engine pushed the heritage cars out to the other end of the station, so that the normal train could leave.

Then it reversed, and left some carriages outside the station (left). It went around to the other end of the heritage carriages, and pulled all cars together, so the GANZ railcoach was able to pass the station (right).

After the newer and old carriages were at last collected in one train, the diesel engine stood to its front (facing Hűvösvölgy). After the steam engine also returned, the seven-car train left, leaving nice memories and a bombed timetable.

The shunting movements cut down to about four minutes. I never thought watching shunting can be so much fun! :)

After this, I walked a bit to Virágvölgy station, and took a train to Hűvösvölgy from there. I thought things already got back to normal, but I was wrong!

The tunnel at Hárshegy was barred, so passengers of the long train could walk through it as part of the celebration programmes. It must have been nice, but it took more time than planned, so the tunnel was still closed by the time my train arrived to Hárshegy station. Therefore it was sent back to Széchenyi-hegy, and we were told to wait for the next one.

After half an hour the tunnel was opened again, and the GANZ railcoach arrived from Hűvösvölgy.

Soon another train arrived: the one to take us to Hűvösvölgy. It was quite crowded, but nobogy cared :)


© Ákos Endre VARGA, unless stated otherwise. All rights reserved.

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