The Explore
There's not much to say about this very well-known explore other than we went on holiday, got the train here, were a bit on edge, climbed through bushes, realised every photographer in Hungary was walking around inside here. Nature has truly reclaimed this place and it makes for some great decay, with trees sprouting from the floors and the glass skylight having been shattered by the weather. I'd heard this place burnt down in the last few years - well it hasn't! Fire damage was evident in a small section which appeared to have destroyed a locomotive and some of the roofing, but the place largely remains the same just with more graffiti and foliage than before. I'll just get on with the history and the trains which tell a story of a country torn between extremes, passed between the Nazis and the Soviets and subject to a struggle for independence.
The History
The railway depot in the Istvantelek suburb of north Budapest began construction around 1902 and opened in 1905. It was built to cater for increased expansion of the Pest – Vác railway which first opened in 1846. The track and workshop halls were built in 1902 after initial foundation work and facilities for workers were put in place. Other facilities were added to the wider site, including two distinctive Intze water towers. In the following two years, an estate for workers' accommodation was constructed nearby. By WW1, there was a peak of around 2,000 workers at the site. A concrete perimeter fence was added in the interwar period. In WW2, some bomb damage was suffered by some of the facilities. After WW2, the site became known as Jenő Landler's Vehicle Repair Plant and gradually decreased in size, and by 1984 the site's role as a main railway workshop ceased permanently with the end of Hungary's steam plant. The depot does not lie fully abandoned today however, and part of the depot is still used today for work on locomotives, and another part is the Hungarian Railway Historic Park museum.
The 'Red Star' Train:
This was the main attraction - a MA(r)V Class 424 steam train bearing a resplendent Soviet red star. Made of cast iron and nicknamed the Buffalo, this enormous train is an obvious relic of Hungary's time as a Soviet puppet state and the era of the Hungarian Revolution; likely dating back to the 1950s. Hungary's Soviet control would not cease until 1989.
Not the exact one but you get the idea of how it might've looked.
Holocaust Trains?
Something else of historical significance is also lying abandoned at the railway depot, which makes for pretty dark subject matter. Several of the wagons here are of the distinctive German covered goods wagon type which were common in the interwar period and WW2. Whilst it is not verified if the exact wagons here did see active use as Holocaust trains, they are of the exact kind and hence are rumoured to have been used or intended for the Holocaust. I found someone else's picture online which clearly shows the text 'Dresden' on the side of one of the wagons here. The ones I saw also bore the text Deutsche Reichsbahn, exactly the same as what appears in contemporary photographs from the Holocaust. Unless they were brought here after World War Two for scrapping or repurposing, there wouldn't be much other reason for Nazi German goods wagons to have arrived here in Budapest. Hungary did indeed facilitate some of the construction of Nazi Germany's goods wagons for the Holocaust, and given how significant the Istvantelek depot was, I wouldn't be surprised if it had this grisly origin.
Powerful stuff
There's not much to say about this very well-known explore other than we went on holiday, got the train here, were a bit on edge, climbed through bushes, realised every photographer in Hungary was walking around inside here. Nature has truly reclaimed this place and it makes for some great decay, with trees sprouting from the floors and the glass skylight having been shattered by the weather. I'd heard this place burnt down in the last few years - well it hasn't! Fire damage was evident in a small section which appeared to have destroyed a locomotive and some of the roofing, but the place largely remains the same just with more graffiti and foliage than before. I'll just get on with the history and the trains which tell a story of a country torn between extremes, passed between the Nazis and the Soviets and subject to a struggle for independence.
The History
The railway depot in the Istvantelek suburb of north Budapest began construction around 1902 and opened in 1905. It was built to cater for increased expansion of the Pest – Vác railway which first opened in 1846. The track and workshop halls were built in 1902 after initial foundation work and facilities for workers were put in place. Other facilities were added to the wider site, including two distinctive Intze water towers. In the following two years, an estate for workers' accommodation was constructed nearby. By WW1, there was a peak of around 2,000 workers at the site. A concrete perimeter fence was added in the interwar period. In WW2, some bomb damage was suffered by some of the facilities. After WW2, the site became known as Jenő Landler's Vehicle Repair Plant and gradually decreased in size, and by 1984 the site's role as a main railway workshop ceased permanently with the end of Hungary's steam plant. The depot does not lie fully abandoned today however, and part of the depot is still used today for work on locomotives, and another part is the Hungarian Railway Historic Park museum.
The 'Red Star' Train:
This was the main attraction - a MA(r)V Class 424 steam train bearing a resplendent Soviet red star. Made of cast iron and nicknamed the Buffalo, this enormous train is an obvious relic of Hungary's time as a Soviet puppet state and the era of the Hungarian Revolution; likely dating back to the 1950s. Hungary's Soviet control would not cease until 1989.
Not the exact one but you get the idea of how it might've looked.
Holocaust Trains?
Something else of historical significance is also lying abandoned at the railway depot, which makes for pretty dark subject matter. Several of the wagons here are of the distinctive German covered goods wagon type which were common in the interwar period and WW2. Whilst it is not verified if the exact wagons here did see active use as Holocaust trains, they are of the exact kind and hence are rumoured to have been used or intended for the Holocaust. I found someone else's picture online which clearly shows the text 'Dresden' on the side of one of the wagons here. The ones I saw also bore the text Deutsche Reichsbahn, exactly the same as what appears in contemporary photographs from the Holocaust. Unless they were brought here after World War Two for scrapping or repurposing, there wouldn't be much other reason for Nazi German goods wagons to have arrived here in Budapest. Hungary did indeed facilitate some of the construction of Nazi Germany's goods wagons for the Holocaust, and given how significant the Istvantelek depot was, I wouldn't be surprised if it had this grisly origin.
Powerful stuff
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