Rail Travel in Hungary

Below is a detailed map of the railways of Hungary. You can zoom in by using the +/- buttons or by using the wheel on your mouse whilst hovering over the map.

The map has been extracted from the Railway Map of Europe with kind permission of the publishers.
You can purchase copies of the full map, as well as rail timetables, from The European Railway Timetable website

HUNGARY

Hungary has a fairly dense network centred on the capital, Budapest which boasts three termini, a metro network (including the oldest line on the Continent), trams and a cogwheel railway up the Buda hills. The front of the East (Keleti) Station is graced by statues of railway and steam pioneers James Watt and George Stephenson.
East of Budapest is the Great Hungarian Plain (or puszta) and Hungary’s second city, Debrecen with trams, trolleybuses, a university, plus a strong Protestant tradition in this majority Roman Catholic country. Many main lines are being slowly modernized with the help of European Union regional development funds.

There are cross-border rail links to each of Hungary’s neighbours though some of these, such as to Romania, Croatia & Slovenia, could be improved. There are regular Eurocity/Railjet style services both from Budapest to Vienna & beyond and from Budapest to Prague & beyond. The line from Budapest to Belgrade is currently being modernised with Chinese financial assistance. There is also a link changing to the wide-gauge Ukrainian network via Zahony and Chob

For those flying to Budapest, shuttle buses take you to Ferihegy station on the main line to Debrecen and to Kobanya-Kiszpest on the city’s metro system.
Rail passenger services are nearly all operated by MAV-START (see link below) though west of the city of Gyor some are operated by GySEV (see link below) which also serves part of the Burgenland in neighbouring Austria. Most Inter City trains require compulsory reservations.

TG November 2021