The Children's Railway in Budapest

The Children's Railway is located in the west of the city of Budapest and is an eleven-kilometre-long, 
narrow gauge line that runs through the woods of the hills of the city on the Buda side, starting on Széchenyi hill where the chairlift just finishes her way up to, till Hűvösvölgy.

The construction started on the 11th of April in 1848 and only in 66 days the first 3 stations were already ready, which is very fast result for those times under hungarian circumstances. In 1950 the whole line was already running with full speed.

 


Those were the times when the first communists started to enter into the Scout Organisation and exactly in 1848 formed into the Pioneers Organisation.







This children were the first who started to work on the Railway in the spirit of the socialism and in order to get some workexperience at the Railways. Till nowadays children are on duty, but engines of course are driven by adult engineers, apart from that, children do their jobs, operate the switches and signals, print tickets and keep passengers informed, on their own. It is often called "the greatest child toy of the world," but it is not entirely true, as everything goes strictly according to regulations of any other railway line of the State Railways of Hungary. 

The railway operates throughout the year, from May to August. 
Trains run from 9 o'clock in the morning until 4 o'clock in this month and until 5 o'clock in the summer.

A whole way ticket costs 600,- Forint and the train goes for example this month every hour, in summer even more often. Students and children of course get 50% discount for the travel.

Timetable to check:

http://www.gyermekvasut.com/timetable.php?2012-05-14

Chairlift over "the hungarian mountains"

The first chairlift was created in the US in 1936 in Sun Valley, Idaho for the skiresort over there  and installed in Proctor and Dollar mountains, owned later on by the Union Pacific Railroad. The chairlift was developed by James Curran, who engineered banana conveyor systems to load cargo ships in the tropics. His basic design is still used for chairlifts today.

The original Proctor Mountain Ski Lift is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In Budapest the construction started in year 1969 and the cabels were imported from Austria. The first ride was in 1970, 20 of August for Hungary's national day, by the actual  Minister of Transport and his wife.
This chairlift has never been used as a skilift, as Hungary does not have such high mountains that you could ski at all.:)

The whole route is 1040 meter long and each hour could have 500 passangers. The level difference up and down is 262 meters beetwen Zugliget and János hegy.
At clear weather, as right now:) you can enjoy the whole panorama.

From my hostel the route to this unique excursion is quiet simple, as you just take the train infront of us till Nyugati pu (18min.) then the bus nr. 291

and you are already in the other part of the city having an another view and still wonderful clean air, just like at my site in comparison to the citycenter.
In the upper end you can find the staton of the children railway, which is a great entertainment not only for children. But about this route you can read in my next blog.

One ride cost 800,- forint, do not forget your student card, as you get discount with it!

Open from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. all year around.