Várnagy Zoltán: Urban Transportation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

1940S BÜS WITH ENGINE IN FRONT

they finally voted in favour of the purchase. The buses were put into service on routes suspended for the duration of the war.

In 1924 the first bus service was opened from Pest to Buda (Krisztina tér), the route crossing the Chain Bridge. As buses caught on, the city council decided to buy one hundred more. In the same year permission was given to the Budapest Bus Transport Co. (BART- Budapest Autóbuszközlekedési Rt.) to start services with 24 buses. The company used models built by the Rába motor factory. In 1932 control over the Capital City Bus Works was taken over by BSZKRT (see above), which started to open bus routes parallel to tram lines. The first was between Boráros tér and Vígszínház (Variety Theatre). The writer Lajos Nagy describes a 1950s bus in these terms:

A bus is such a huge construction that it would pass for a smaller village house if it was not moving on wheels and if it was painted white and not blue. Its wheels are so thick that goud think it suffers from elephantiasis. The bus carries passengers from daybreak to late in the night. It is crammed with passengers much like a tin is filled with sardines, so it would be no wonder if it was called passenger tin and not motor bus.

There are small signs nailed to the inside of the bus. One bears a figure, for example 156. The other declares the prohibition “No smokingThe third board

31