N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Pest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

A tunnel for cables under the Danube

■ Panage leading down below the Danube

the riverbed, persuading the military to render the tunnel impassable by only damaging the stairs at the end shafts. Exploiting his earlier friendship with staff lieutenant-colonel Gaszton Hámory, a Hungarian liaison officer with the Germans, Dunay managed to achieve at least partial success: the retreating German troops damaged only the Pest side entrance shaft after removing the explosives from the shaft itself. The system did not remain intact, however, as practically all the cables were damaged. The only surviving cable (with a capacity of kV io) enabled the authorities to revive the Kelenföld Plant with power conducted from the Vác Power Station to Buda. When the siege was over, reconstruction of the tunnel was undertaken with great energy and by the middle of 1946, by the time the entire electric system of the capital had been made operational, work on the tunnel had been completed.

During the Cold War and the decades to follow, the cable tunnel, owned by the Budapest Electric Works, was veiled in secrecy. It was not opened to the public until it was declared an industrial monument on 12 November 1991. On that occasion the system was introduced to the public in a television programme featuring András Dunay, already an awardee of the "diamond degree" on the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation, and the official supervisor of the system, mechanical engineer Árpád Király, director of the Hungarian Electrical Museum.