Benedek Csaba – H. Bathó Edit – Gulyás Katalin – Horváth László – Kaposvári Gyöngyi szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 14. (2004)
Additional Data to the History of Shipping in the Mid-Tisza Region
became the property of the Danube Steamboat Society, which, from the 1880s onwards, had two steamboats between Szeged and Tiszafüred. At the beginning of the 20 th century, priváté people alsó attempted to run ships regularly between Szolnok and Tiszasüly without considerable success. In the 1930s, the realisation of the Danube-Tisza channel and the development of the Tisza waterway came to the foreground again, and in 1933, they could gain government support for it. On 29 August, 1933 the "Lukács Béla" steamer made her maidén voyage from Tokaj with several cabinet ministers on board. Governor Miklós Horthy alsó joined the participants of the voyage. After this, the development of the Tisza waterway was given an impulse. Two grain silos and a new harbour were built in Szolnok, and transit shipping became regular. The destruction of World War 2 left terrible marks on the Tisza commercial fleet. There were two motor ships and a side-wheeler left, but these were destroyed by the withdrawing Germán troops. Two ships were foundered by their on crew. 19 ferry scows being hove to at various places were alsó confounded. After the war, on 24 April, 1947, transit shipping between Szolnok and Tiszabura restarted. From April 1955 onwards there were pleasure-boats sailing up and down the Tisza. The ship run between Szolnok and Csongrád began in August, 1957, but less than a decade later, in 1966, MAHART (the shipping company) ended it because it had not been economical. After that, it was only the "Délibáb" cleaving through the waters of the Tisza between Tiszabura and Vezseny, but in 1969, she alsó met her fate: she was deleted from the timetable. By the end of the 1970s, the volume of freight traffic had reached 150.000 tones. After 1982 the amount of cargo dropped, because vehicular traffic proved to be faster and could deliver from door to door. The traditional shippers left the river. In recent years, somé interest has arisen towards the possibilities of shipping on the Tisza, but at this stage, it is only confmed to small and medium-sized pleasure boát runs around Szolnok. Hopefully, the town, which has all the major transportation links (railway, road, waterway and aviation), will play an important role in organising and distributing circulation of commodities as the logistic centre of the Mid-Plain region. 509
