Special railway transportations in Hungary
Special railway transportations in Hungary

Summary/Abstract: The railway network of the Hungarian State Railways spanned 22 869 kilometres at the beginning of the Great War which was one of the thickest railway networks in Europe. This network could meet the transportation needs in the years of the Great war with enormous effort. The Hungarian railway employees could solve many special tasks, two of which will be presented in this paper. Vienna requested Turkish military support to try and stop the advancing Brusilov-offense and the increasing Russian pressure.The first troops of the 30 000 Turkish soldiers dispatched to the Eastern Front crossed the Hungarian border on August 5th, and they travelled on the least used lines of the Hungarian State Railways. Similarly, their way home was not conducted by the Hungarian State Railways through Budapest and the main lines, but on the secondary lines of Hungary between 11th June and 7th July of 1917.The other special action was conducted in 1915, when Hungarian troops and their equipment – stuck in a valley due to the Russian advancements – were saved by the Hungarian State Railways by deploying special trains. The troops were stuck on the eastern side of a 1145-metre-high pass, and on the mountain between Borgótiha (Tihuca) and Dornavölgy (Domisoara) there was a 33-kilometre gap in the railway connection in the summer of 1915. The narrow, curving mountain road was unsuitable for normal tracks to be laid down, that is why benzo-electric trains were deployed. The equipments of the Hungarian National railways and the K.K. Österreichische Staatsbahnen stuck in Bukovina were moved by using this benzo-electric railway train.

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