Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Town gas from coal - The Óbuda Gas Works (1913-84)

chasing existing plants and building a new, communal, gas works would be recovered in a few years' time. That was how Budapest’s municipality announced, on 26 May 1909, its intention to acquire the city’s gashouses. However, to guarantee the gradual development and smooth continued operation of the gas works, the company was petitioned to allow its leading experts to cooperate in the preliminary work that was to be done before the new communal gas works could be opened.

Town gas from coal — The Óbuda Gas Works (1913—84)

First, a joint committee chaired by the mayor drew up the conditions of and the procedures to follow the acquisition of the General Austrian-Hungarian Gas Company. The cost was more than 22 million gold korona, and also entailed the simultaneous construction of a self-owned factory. But where was that to be? Suggestion after suggestion was discarded, such as the Brick Factory fields in Kőbánya, the Fehér út fields, the area between the outer Cinkota and the circular railway line, the outlying areas of Rákospalota, the vicinity of the Reedy Lake in Rákospalota, and eventually the Mosquito Island (today’s Népsziget). At one point it was suggested that there could be a separate gashouse built for Pest and for Buda each, but as this would have dissipated production, the idea was also rejected. What the city finally voted on was the Sandy Field of Óbuda because, as the later general manager Ferenc Heltai pointed it out, "there was no danger here oh the hactory becoming a public nuisance”. The plots required for the construction were expropriated, and the archaeological excavations conducted in the nearby Aquincum area were accelerated by allowing the capital city museum to take out an emergency loan.

The site did in fact appear ideal with-the only possible disadvantage that the prevailing winds blew the sour smell arising from the production process over the city. This, however, was insignificant by comparison with the benefits of the location, which was bordered on the north and west by railway lines, and on the southeast by the Danube — rendering the building of new railway lines unnecessary on the one hand and making waterway transport feasible on the other. Added to this was the fact that the problems of industrial water supplies and wastewater disposal were also solved.

The city established the Gas Works Company of Budapest, appointing Ferenc Heltai as general manager, and putting illumination manager Izidor Bernauer and production engineer Győző Schön in charge of overseeing all tasks to be carried out prior to the opening of the new factory. The committee entrusted with supervising construction designs recommended that the full capacity of the new gas works be set at a daily production of half a million cubic metres, even though half of that amount would

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