Hungarian Railway News - May 1998 Information and news on Hungarian Railways compiled by Ferenc Joo from Budapest which was circulated amongst members of the "Friends of the Hungarian Railway Group" by e-mail postings. Edited and uploaded by Phil Richards with the kind permission of the compiler. Date: 16-May-98 Hi, Some of you might have received some of this info already. Sorry for that. BIG NEWS is that an M61 supposably now works crane trains once a week into Nyugati station for servicing. More M61s are rumoured to be re-allocated to Budapest. Will we still see them on passenger trains this summer? The train that has been a solid M61 so far (even through winter) will probably not be an M61 (at least not in the heating season) anymore, as the train will be extended to Pecs (ex-Szombathely) and will require electric heated cars to work with V43s. Although, some cars used to have both heating systems, I don't know if they still do. A couple of other interesting trains will also be abandoned with the new MAV timetable. In the next week I will ride for the last time (at least for the time being) on the following: -the Kaposvar-Szombathley train hauled by an M61, of course -HZ 1142 hauled trains Budapest-Gyekenyes (not known if this would continue) -Alutus (Szombathely-Tapolca-Bucharest w/CFR cars; a substitute of this train will run Szombathely-Gyor-Bucharest-Galati) -Puskin (Beograd-Moscow) using the avoiding curve at Cegled and continueing via Debrecen-Zahony (there will be Beograd-Budapest-Warsaw-Moscow cars from May 24) -Karpaty (Warsaw-Miskolc-Hatvan-Lokoshaza-Bucharest) -Arrabona (Wien-Debrecen; will run as Debrecen-Wien-Budapest only) I will not be able to go to Sopron-Deli, where passenger traffic will ceise. I will try and also ride some of the first trains on May 24: -rebuilt (aircon) Bzmots Miskolc-Ozd/Satoraljaujhely -Sundays only Eurocity Satoraljaujhely-Wien -InterCity Eger-Budapest Also, there are now CFR Class 60/62 diesels working through to Puspokladany on all international trains (3 engine diagram). Supposably an InterCity service has already started Budapest-Nagykanizsa, though the electrification of the line will be complete only in September. The IC karts have problems, IC trailers have been seen hauled by V43s and even mixed with other types of cars (DWA built ones). Once I saw the trailers complete with driving car powered by the power car of the new suburban electric set, Bvhmot. (Only 2 such prototype sets yet exist. There will not be new ones before the year 2000). Hope you liked the news. Best wishes, Ferenc --- Date: 17-May-98 Hi there, Today I rode the 1650 Kaposvar-Szombathely train (in the cab). The driver said that according to his information M61s would continue to operate this train in the future. The diagram of an M61 on this turn is: Tapolca- Szombathely-Kaposvar-Tapolca. They will probably drop the Kaposvar-Fonyod- Kaposvar turn during mid-day in this diagram. This means that the train I took today always has an engine change, an M61 for another M61 at Tapolca. Also, it is not so easy to get rid of the NOHABs. M41s are too weak for the long fast trains, so 6 or 7 times out of 10 M61s will handle them between Celldomolk/Tapolca and Szekesfehervar. The same goes for M62s on the Szekesfehervar-Veszprem-Szombathely line. My driver had a very bad oppinion of the person who introduced M41s on the fast trains here. M61 017 is now a station shunter at Rakos, that is how it handles the crain train into Nyugati every now and then. No news if others would follow or not. Right now all other engines of the class are occasionally active, apart from M61 013. Today I visited the narrow-gauge festival at Kaszo. A special train connected at Szenta to IC200 which had a special stop here (HZ 1142.013 on this train by the way), using all three passenger cars of the NG, one of which is brand new and hasn't even been out on the line yet! After arrival at Kaszo, the steam locomotive acquired last December from the Romanian ( Transylvanian) system at Borsec, named Karacsony (e.g. Christmas), hauled the train 2.5 kms back on the line to Bojsza. C-401 then coupled on it and returned to Kaszo with the kettle running light. This was repeated twice more during the day. Then the special train ran back to Szenta. News is that there is only a small section of line left where the catenary posts need to be hammered into the ground, between Balatonszentgyorgy and Savoly. The works should all be finished by the end of June. However, the sub-station will not be finished before September 30. Despite regulations that the new timetables have to be issued 2 weeks prior to the actual changes, as of today they are not yet available. The driver on M61 004 today told me that the whole chnage might be postponed because there was a fatal disk error when transferring the driver's timetable to the print, and without their "service" timetable the official Kursbuch is worth not a penny. (In other words, they wouldn't work out of that.) Strange story! Cheers, Ferenc --- Date: 18-May-98 Two of the three IC karts BVmot 001 and 002 observed working on Sunday, 17th May, on the Budapest-Szeged IC services (on the 1520 and 1920 departures from Budapest). Also, the two "new" karts Bvhmot 201+202 seen working, first on train 2145, the 1355 Szob-Budapest, then on 2126, the 1630 Budapest-Sturovo(ZSR). Presumably returned with the 1835 Sturovo-Budapest train (nr. 2131). M41s 2115, 2118, 2206, 2207 worked on the Budapest-Vacratot-Vac line. The catenary posts are dumped beside the track as far as Csomad, wholes dug and concrete embedding in place as well, and a few posts are already standing. M47 2026 worked the 1840 Tapolca-Balatonszentgyorgy service on May 16, M47 2075 hauled the same train on May 3. M62 187 on the 1902 Fonyod-Nagykanizsa stopper after the engine change in Balatonszentgyorgy, on May 3. M62 177 worked the same train on May 16. M62 151 worked the 1930 Nagykanizsa-Balatonszentgyorgy train on May 3 and M62 255 did the same honours on the 16th. The Venice-Budapest day service "Drava" was hauled by M62 171 on May 3, and M62 151 did the job on May 16, in both cases complete with electric generator van. Cheers, Ferenc --- Date: 18-May-98 Spoke to operations people at Nyugati today. The M61 hauled crane train goes from Rakos to Nyugati station each weekend. Usually on Saturdays, but last weekend it was on Sunday. They change the batteries on track 1. Other news is that the M44 shunters will be replaced by M40 engines from Sunday at Nyugati station. Bvhmot 201+202 observed working again today. Ferenc --- Date: 18-May-98 Hello again, The power cars and cab cars of the IC units are swapped as follows: Power car BVmot 001 runs together with cab car Bmxtz 002. BVmot 003 runs with Bmxtz 001. BVmot 002 is currently not running. A minor accident ensued about two weeks ago when a train was shunted too far on track 17 (outside the main hall) of Nyugati station. The last car hit the buffers, pushed it off the tracks, and against a catenary pole standing there which was bent. They now took the pole out and there is no wire above the last 100 yards or so of the track. About a month ago the catenary loosened near the junction at the end of Nyugati station. All trains to and from Kobanya-Kispest were hauled by diesel shunters (two M44s and an M47) for some 2 hours as far as Kobanya teher pu. (Kobanya freight yards), the site of the expo grounds. This resulted in considerable delays. Some trains were up to 50 minutes delayed, with InterCity trains from Nyiregyhaza and Szeged more than 30 minutes delayed, as the 3 engines proved to be insufficient. One train was hauled by the M47 out of the station on some load 16, resulting in a speed record of 15 km/h after half a kilometre. Did this have anything to do with the decision to take these shunters away and replace them by M40s? Best, Ferenc ---