Hungarian Trams
& Trolleybuses - Budapest Part 1
The capital of Hungary is the large city of
Budapest. Situated on the river Danube,
the west bank is the older and hilly Buda, the east bank is the larger and
newer Pest. There are many superb
buildings, especially the Hungarian Parliament building that looks impressive whether
it is day or night time. There is a vast
tramway network, which includes normal street running trams and former light
rail cars from Hannover, as well as a trolleybus system, metro and a cog-wheel
railway. For the purpose of our video
programme we have divided it into two parts.
Part one features mostly the trams running in central Budapest, with
part two featuring the trolleybuses, light rail and the trams running in the
suburbs, with a brief visit to the cog-wheel railway. We also see the buses on both programmes as
they integrate with the trams and trolleybuses. Electric trams were introduced
in 1887. Today in 2015 when our filming
took place there were 33 lines of which 26 are main lines with 7 supplemental
lines. The fleet is made up of older
locally built Ganz cars, of which some are articulated. Tatra T5 cars, Düwag TW 6000 (Light Rail) and
Low floor Siemens Combino trams which are currently the longest trams in
Europe. They are operated from 9 depots
situated all over the city. The
operating company is BKV (Budapesti Közlekedési Vállalat) who’s
logo still appears on the vehicles, but in 2010 became BKK (Budapesti
Kózlekedési Központ). Around a third of the buses are operated by private
companies, but are all in BKK colours.
The trams are in a yellow livery, trolleybuses in red and the buses
blue.
Our filming commences on this programme at Vámház krt.
Then we move to the busy Szent Gellért tér M interchange. Our cameras continue along the banks of the
Danube and board Ganz KCSV7 car number 1344 on route 2 to the Hungarian
Parliament Building at Kossuth Lajos tér.
With more filming completed around this area we board similar tram 1340,
also on route 2 to Boráros tér. Another
filming location is Móricz Zsigmond körter M and from here we board Ganz tram
1476 for a ride back to Szent Gellért tér M.
We now take a look at Budapest by night.
Travelling on tram 1352 along route 2 we reach the Hungarian Parliament
building at twilight and film the trams as night falls at this magical
location. Our cameras then film in the
Astoria area and see both trams and buses going about their work on the busy
night-time streets. This completes part
one of our visit to Budapest. Join us in
part two for trolleybus coverage and even more trams!