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

the project. This route had several steep rises, where an auxiliary team of horses was needed. This is how the paper Magyarország és a nagyvilág (Hungary and the World) reported the official opening:

The opening of this new tramway line is a true blessing for that part of the capital's population which, having at least once ridden on an omnibus or paid a cab fare, is in a position to fully appreciate the benefits it will derive from this new means of transportation. [...] Over are the days of the battles which cost us so many broken necks, sprained wrists, flattened feet, fracturedr noses and ribs-battles only fought by those-reckless enough to brave the dangers involved in forcefully occupying an omnibus seat

The other Buda line, also opened in 1868, connected the Buda side of Lánchíd (Chain Bridge) and Obuda’s main square. It was the last horse tramway line to be built in Buda. Margit Bridge, opened in 1876, provided a connection between the Pest and Buda networks, and made changing trams possible. Prolonged disputes over whether the Pest or the Buda company’s cars should cross the bridge and enter the other’s territory were only to be settled by the fusion of the two firms, when the richer Pest Street Railway Company bought up its Buda counterpart. The new company was named Budapest Street Railway Company.

There was a setback due to the depression of 1873, but by 1890 the number of journeys by horse tramway had reached 18 million a year. Initially, a first class ticket between Kálvin tér and Újpest cost twenty, while a third class fare was ten krajcárs (the latter sum could buy about three eggs), but an 1870 decree stipulated that workers employed in outlying factories were to be given a discount of 20-25 per cent.

The entire length of track was 45.8 kilometres in 1889, though it was later to be extended. Fares taken from 18 million passengers yielded a net income of Ft 1.7 million to the company.

In the 1890s the idea arose that a new street railway equipped with engine-drawn carriages should be installed in Budapest. What Mór Balázs, the future director general of the electric tramway company, had at first in mind were carriages pulled by steam engines, as is

6