The century of the railway
Based on Dr. Czre Bla's writing Our transportation yesterday and today (http://www.scitech.mtesz.hu/03czere/czere3.htm)

The first steps
The 19th century was called the "century of the railway" by many properly, because among the transportation means the railway was in the front line of the transportation revolution and had the greatest influence on the transformation of socio-economic life.
In Hungary the Diet of 1825-27 of Pozsony can be regarded as the start of the reform age, because the leaders made the elimination of the backward transportation conditions one of the main issues of the development. The diet called for a national committee to elaborate the relevant proposition. In it our legislation mentioned railroads for the first time (ductus ferrei). It also phrased a crucial principle: payment was compulsory to everybody who used the transportation facilities, breaking the ancient rights of the nobility. The committee designated the 12 main routes that were to be built out as public roads. These were later designated as railroads by our first railroad act. Although the proposition did not become an act, this diet gave considerable impetus to the national transportation development.
In Hungary the wooden track was used in some mines since the 16th century, but for a long time surface horse trams were not built in our country. The first such project was the Pest-Kbnya floating rail that existed in 1827-28. The railway bed was made of wood, it was formed by beams fixed on legs whose height changed according to the characteristics of the ground; on the two sides of the beams planks were fixed and the wrought iron rods were laid on their edges. The four-wheeled carriage, which was built from rods, ran on these rods. The so-called carriage-boxes were suspended on the two sides. The pulling horse moved next to the track, on the ground.
Due to the general lack of capital and the distrust of the untested technical solution, only a very modest program was implemented: the 7.6-km line running from Pest to Kbnya, expressedly as a pilot railway. However, the railway did not prove to be viable. Due to the technical immaturity of the construction, the faults of the implementation and especially the scarce traffic the railway was uneconomical - the competition of the wagoners concerned about their own bread also played an important part. After half year of operation, in spring 1828 the railway was closed.
The Diet of 1832-36 was an important milestone in the development of the cause of the national railway as it framed the first Hungarian railway act. The act stated that the Estate privileges did not exempt anybody from paying the transportation fees. It took a stand for private enterprise, declared the principle of expropriation and added a 13th route that led to the Hungarian coasts to the 12 main routes proposed by the committee of the 1825-27 diet.
The first really permanent national public horse train named Pozsony-Nagyszombat First Hungarian Railroad Company was built between Pozsony and Nagyszombat between 1840-46. The railway bed was dimensioned so that later it would be suitable for the superstructure of the steam railroad. On the one-track road the projected average speed was 16 kph for passenger transport and 8 kph for freight transport.
Although its traffic exceeded the expectations, the Pozsony-Nagyszombat horse train did not prove to be profitable; the costs of construction and maintenance were very high. It was difficult to save it from bankruptcy. Lajos Kossuth also batted for it. The train ceased as a horse train in 1872 and was reopened as a steam operated railway in 1875 as Vg Valley Railway Company.
However, the first "real" steam operated railway named Hungarian Central Railway Company opened its first line, the Pest-Vc line only on 15 July 1846.
At the time of the opening of the line the first train was towed by engines "Pest" and "Buda", which were bought from Belgium, from the Cockerrill company together with their companions. The 33.6-km long journey from Pest to Vc took 59 minutes. With this Hungary entered the group of countries possessing steam operated railways as the 11th state in Europe.
The superstructure of the track was built from 5.5-m long mushroom-headed wrought iron rails with mass 18 kg per metre. The railway station in Pest was built on the place of the present-day Western Railway Station but its facade reached as far as the present-day Jkai Street.
The boiler of the first Belgian and then Austrian engines produced a pressure of 6.25 bar and a power of 50 to 60 horsepower (app. 38 to 44 kW), they were controlled by Stephenson link motion controller, their adhesion weight was considerable, 10.9 tons. The purchased passenger cars and freight cars showed considerable development, they were of eight-wheel bogie type.
Initially the passenger traffic on the Pest-Vc line was provided by 4 train pairs. The trains could follow each other at given intervals. Signs were given only with hand-held signalling devices. The stations were connected to each other through Baun-type telegraph equipment.
The Pest-Szolnok line was opened on 1 September 1847, approximately one year after the opening of the Pest-Vc line and the Pozsony-Marchegg line was opened on 20 September 1848. In the meantime - on 20 August - Sopron received railroad connection to Katzelsdorf.
The construction of the other lines of the Hungarian Central Railway Company was impeded by the events of the War of Liberty. In 1848, at the time of the War of Liberty a total of 243 km of railways was in operation in Hungary; from these traffic was provided by steam traction on 180 km.

Kossuth and Szchenyi for transportation
Lajos Kossuth's transportation ideas - like his other ideas - were characterised by the service of the idea of Hungarian independence. In his program the transportation reforms formed part of the complete reformation of the feudal Hungary, of becoming independent from Austria.
Kossuth wished to solve the development of transportation at public expense, through the full implementation of public burden; in his opinion nobility should also have taken the financial burden of creating transportation at the expense of the state. In order to exclude the Austrian commission trade and get Hungarian products to the world market, the most important task was the development of Fiume, the Hungarian seaport and the establishment of a fast and cheap approach. His famous slogan To the sea Hungarians also expressed this idea. He proposed a railway to be built between Fiume and Vukovar, which is the closest point on the Danube as the fastest, least costly solution as the road to the sea; through it the products of the Hungarian Plain could reach Fiume through combined transportation  on water and railway. His plan was met by Szchenyis strong opposition on the Diet of 1847-48 who in his own plan wished to implement the railway to the sea in a different way.
Szchenyi, whose transportation reforms were approved also by Kossuth in part, was regarded as the competent, staunch and tireless leader of the transportation issues of the country after the promotion of steamships, the construction of the Chain Bridge and his other contributions. In 1845 he regarded the regulation of river Tisza and the implementation of steamship transport on Tisza as his most urgent tasks. The detailed monumental plans were finished by Pl Vsrhelyi in 1845. After his sudden death in 1846, in 1848 Szchenyi could already speak about the saved flood-plain exceeding two and a half million acres.
In his new position Szchenyi realised that in order to develop national transportation steadily, a proposition that arranged the railways to be built and the development of road and water networks into a unified system was required. The work was published in 1848 with the title Treatise on the settlement of the Hungarian transportation issues and it proved to be the highest standard transportation policy study of the era; its theoretical propositions were accompanied by detailed economic calculations. The fundamental principles of the transportation network were that its centre was Buda-Pest, the capital of the country, from where the main lines branched out radially. The Treatise envisaged 4 main lines, 4 auxiliary lines and 4 branch lines (a total of 1884 km), besides these it proposed constructing a total of 5992 km of road, regulating rivers Danube, Tisza and their tributaries, rendering river Drva navigable, surveying smaller rivers, preparing navigability plans and regulating the Si channel.
Szchenyis plan, especially his idea of the Budapest-centered railway network had influenced the subsequent development of the Hungarian railway network greatly and that in turn the rapid development of the capital into a metropolis.
The Treatise was adopted by the Diet and enforced by it as Act 30 of 1848. 8 million Hungarian forints were given for its implementation. The accomplishment of the plan was prevented by the unsuccessful war of liberty that at the same time opened a new chapter in the history of national transportation.

The golden age of the steam engine
Until 1867 the establishment of the Hungarian transportation network was carried out as part of the imperial network with Vienna as centre. In the beginning  the beginning of the 1840s  Austria committed itself to the state railway system and nationalised private railways  including the Hungarian ones. But soon a decisive change came about in railway policy. From 1855 the Austrian government sold the state railways due to the grave financial burdens of railway construction and private railway system became exclusive in Hungary as well. The promised allowances resulted in a tremendous railway construction fervour.
In 1855-56 three large private railway companies gained crucial economic position in Hungary. The Austrian State Iron Road Company belonged to the financial group of the Rotschild Banking House, its line network ranged from northeast to southwest, from Marchegg to Bzis. It became an economic power through its own ore and coal mines, iron foundries and machine works. The Southern Iron Road Company  held by Austrian, French and Hungarian investors  connected the Hungarian capital and the Transdanubian region with the Austrian alpine provinces and Italy. The network of the Tisza Regional Iron Road Company spread in the north-eastern part of the country, solely on Hungarian territory. The first national industrial railway, the Mohcs-Pcs railway owned by DG was opened in 1857. Due to the large-scale railway constructions, the length of the network was 2234 km before the Compromise. The above-mentioned three large private railway companies controlled 97% of the national network.
The Acts connected to the Compromise opened an opportunity to the new Hungarian railway policy: the government committed itself to the mixed property system, in which both the state and the private investors could construct and operate railways.
The formation of the Hungarian State Railways (MV) took place soon. In 1867 the Hungarian Northern Railway opened its lines between Pest-Hatvan and then between Hatvan-Salgtarjn to a total of 126 km. However, soon it was on the verge of bankruptcy so the government purchased it in 1868. In the next decade MV constructed about 1000 km of new lines. The privately owned railways expanded the network by an additional 2400 km. The total length of our railways therefore reached almost 7000 km. The leading part in the country was played by private railways.
However, the disadvantages of the mixed system also unfolded. The private railways enjoyed a state interest warranty of 5-6%, that is, the government undertook to provide a certain percentage interest on the invested capital; if the annual profit did not reach this amount, the stated compensated for the difference. This system  like in many other countries  spawned abuse and panamas in the country. Despite the state interest warranty that proved to be a grave burden, the government did not have enough influence on railway construction and operation, the tariffs applied by railway companies.
All these led to determined nationalisation policy, the most outstanding character of which was Gbor Baross. He made MV into a well-operated, profitable, huge state company. Zone tariff, which declared a unified tariff for a given distance zone and made railway travel considerably cheaper is also connected to his name. He succeeded in increasing passenger traffic to approximately sixfold.
The last wave of the railway nationalisation of the last century happened between 1889-91. Of the major railways only the Southern Railway Company, the Kassa-Oderberg Railway and the Gyr-Sopron-Ebenfurt Railway remained as privately owned railway (the latter until today). With this the burdens of the interest warranty on the state treasury ceased and the net profit of MV exceeded the state debt arising from the nationalisation of the railways.
With the formation of mainline network the idea of establishing secondary lines serving local transportation needs also appeared. In three decades more than a hundred such railways of modest technical design and capacity were built with a total length close to 12000 km, mostly from national capital.
By 1914 the length of our railways reached 22869 km, out of this 21258 km was ordinary (with span 1435 mm) and 1611 km was narrow-track (with span 860 mm or 1000 mm). The railway density of the country (7.1 km/100km2) approached that of developed European countries and surpassed the railway density of the countries on the periphery of the continent.
In the fifty years of Dualism Hungarian railway constructions, the development of the network gave huge impetus to socio-economic development. Tens of thousands of people worked on railway constructions constantly, railway projects and railway operation created a rapidly increasing market to iron and steel industry, machine industry, construction industry and coal mining industry.
This period coincides with the period of the technical development of steam-operated railway when the considerable increase of power output and the enhancing of efficiency became the primary requirements. Before this period the role of national industry  apart from the chill-cast wheels and the sidings manufactured by the Ganz factory  was negligible. However, in 1873 the manufacturing of engines started in MV Engine Workshop. Engines manufactured based on foreign designs were soon replaced by engines based on own designs. In these years characteristic Hungarian steam engines were designed that belonged to the best traction vehicles of the period. The factory sent out its 500th engine in 1893 and the first engine with velocity 100 km/h was finished in 1900.
Steam engines had not reached their final development when the need for further development of traction appeared. From 1901 steam motor cars and from 1902 petrol motor cars serving scarcer traffic were manufactured for the railways by the Ganz factory and by other factories. The idea of the electrification of Hungarian mainlines was introduced already in 1900 by Klmn Kand (1869-1931), the world-famous pioneer of AC electrification. The Ganz factory built the Italian Valtellina Railway (1902) and then the Giovi line (1910) based on his plans. The Rkospalota-Veresegyhz-Vc-Gdll suburban electrical railway that was managed by MV and operated with single phase alternating current was opened in 1911, simultaneously with the electrification plan of the national mainlines. However, these early achievements did not influence the predominance of steam operation then.
After the turn of the century passenger traffic increased to sixty-eightfold and the transported ton-mileage to twenty-fivefold on the national railways. Railway became the generally used medium of long-distance passenger and freight traffic: it carried 98-99% of public passenger traffic and 94 (ton) % of freight traffic.
Due to the development of the railway network capitalistic production and marketing techniques became predominant in the whole country. Even the furthest territories were introduced into the economic bloodstream. The transportation of goods became cheaper. The possibility of railway travel proved to be the most important factor in increasing social mobility. The previously unimaginable achievements of modern engineering techniques and railways influenced the lifestyle and the perspective of the masses.
