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

THE FUNICULAR AFTER RESTORATION

The “Sikló”-up Castle Hill by funicular

The “Sikló”, or the funicular on Castle Hill, was restored to its original condition forty years after it had been destroyed in the war. Two three-level units run on parallel lines, one always ascending while the other is on its way down. The track on the Buda hillside was built at the suggestion of Ödön Széchenyi and opened in f 870. Each car takes one minute to cover the 98-metre, 30% incline. The funicular was originally powered by a steam engine, but today electricity is used. Nearly half a million passengers were carried annually in the years after its opening. The number in 1992 was 638,000.

The suburban railway

Around the end of the last century traffic was becoming busier and busier between Budapest and the outlying districts as well as within the capital. Vegetables, fruit, eggs and poultry were normally shipped by boat, train or cart to the markets of the great city, but the first suburban railway line, between Soroksár and the Municipal Slaughter House, was already opened in 1887, the same year as the first tram line. The following year saw

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