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

Developing utilities on doctor's orders

where the monumental section (measuring 4.8 metres vertically and 4.5 metres across) continued in a southerly direction; this sewer was in fact so huge that "... a large, tully loaded hay cart could pan through it..." When the trunk mains were completed, the discharge points on the riverbank were eliminated or their function was limited to that of emergency outfall apertures. The first pumping station on the Pest side was built in 1889—94 south of the South Rail Bridge on "the municipal executioner’s plot” (in fact it was the County Execution Site that used to lie alongside Soroksári út). At low water levels the free port allowed for gravity discharge but at higher water levels six pairs of pumps lifted the wastewater into the Danube. Each pair of these pumps was powered by a 200 HP steam engine, with the sewage and stormwater conveyed into the Danube by an iron pipe reaching forty metres into the river.

The district authorities hired private entrepreneurs for the cleansing and maintenance of the sewer system but in the absence of mechanisation funds were insufficient to cover as the maintenance of as much as 2 kilometres a year. The situation was further complicated by the fact that with the completion of plans for the canal■ A peep through the window of the water-line gauge on the Bem rakpart

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