The first Hungarian railway ran from Pest to Vác and was opened in 1846 - this is what many people know, although this is not true. The Pest–Vác railway line was the third railway line in the country. True, it was truly the first in that the carriages on this railway line were no longer pulled by horses, but by steam locomotives. The first Hungarian railway line was completed nearly 20 years earlier, on 15 August 1827, and led from Pest to Kőbánya.

However, this railway looked completely different from what we would think of as "normal" today. In the first place, the cars were not pulled by steam locomotives, but by horses, and they did not run on a pair of parallel rails laid on the ground, but "floated" above the ground.

Of course, they didn't fly, but the railway ran on a wooden structure running at an average height of one and a half to two meters above the ground, where the wooden beams were held by densely placed wooden posts. The wheels ran on very closely spaced rails on top of the beams, and the carriages hung down on either side of the entire structure, therefore floating, i.e. the design was very similar to a monorail.

The strange, complicated structure was not a Hungarian invention, it was patented by an Englishman, namely Henry Palmer. In the 1820s, this system seemed to be very advantageous, since it was not necessary to raise embankments for its construction, the track could be created with relatively little earthwork, only a suitable amount of wood was needed. Such a railway was experimented with in several places in Europe, and Baden salt mine manager János Gáspár Bodmer jointly applied for a patent with the Austrian company Bollinger & co. for the construction of a Hungarian network of more than 900 kilometers, which would have connected Pest with Debrecen and Fiume, for example. The costs were correspondingly high, the price of the entire network was set at two million forints.

The main supporter, Palatine Joseph (painting by Miklós Barabás)

Palatine Joseph liked the idea, but before the entrepreneurs could get a license covering the entire country, the Palatine first wanted a test track that led from Pest to Kőbánya. Work on the 7.6 kilometer railway section began in May 1827. The company issued shares, a total of 513 shares were sold, among the shareholders were the palatine himself, György Sina, one of the richest men in the empire, as well as the banker Móric Ulmann and István Széchenyi. However, there was not enough money to use hardwood, so they built the course out of pine. The rapid work was hampered by the lack of manpower, so the palatine also ordered the military, but an additional problem was that one of the company partners and also the construction manager, János Bodmer, died unexpectedly in the early summer of 1827.

The 1,372-pole line from Pest to Kőbánya was finally completed on 15 August 1827. Its main purpose was to supply Pest with building materials, so it branched off at Kőbánya, one end point was at the Kauser quarry, and the other branch was at the Lechner brick kiln. To facilitate stone transport, the line is slightly inclined towards Pest.

The drawing of the floating railway (Béla Czére: A pest-kőbányai próbavasút története [The history of the Pest-Kőbánya trial railway], Közlekedéstudományi Szemle, 1957. No. 7-8) 

The ceremonial opening took place on 20 August 1827, attended by the Palatine himself and his entire family, who travelled from Pest to Kőbánya on the new railway. In the 25 August 1827 issue of Hazai's Külföldi Tudósítások, readers of the paper could read this:

"His High Duchy with his family, and the Deputation, led by Honourable Baron József Venkheim Főispán of Arad, at the city's new Kőbánya, got on the carriages used for sitting, decorated with two flags with Hungarian colours flying in front of it, and all the way to the Kerepesi line, pulled by a horse, he arrived."

On the way back, Palatine Joseph and his decorated entourage were no longer transported, but - as a proof of its usefulness - a horse pulled 68 soldiers and a load of 148 Viennese quintal (that is, almost 8.3 tons), and later another train was started, and it was loaded with a total of 27 tons of stone, wool, and 40 barrels of wine. The journey time was approximately 1 hour.

The business seemed to be successful, but problems soon appeared. On the one hand, there were not enough cars, i.e. not enough trains could run for the company to generate a profit. Of the existing 11 cars, usually only a maximum of 8 could be used at the same time, the rest had to be repaired, while three times as many, i.e. 24, were supposed to be running constantly, so the planned two trains per day could not always be started. In addition, the saving, that is, the use of softwood, paid off, and because of this, the track had to be constantly repaired. The softwood beams deformed under the weight, the screws loosened and fell out.

A part of the track and a 2/3 scale reconstruction of the cars at the 2010-2012 exhibition "A hídember gépei" ["The Bridgeman's Machines"] of the Museum of Transport (Photo: Hungarian Museum of Science, Technology and Transport) 

The railway could not even run in strong winds, because the structure had a significant defect, which could actually have been easily rectified. Since there were only wheels at the top, four per car, which were located quite close to each other, the cars hanging over the sides were rocked by the wind. This could have been avoided if the carriages were equipped with horizontal wheels that roll on the sides of the beams supporting the track and thus prevent swaying, but neither the freight nor the passenger carriages had such wheels. 

The carriers who had been transporting building materials until then were not happy about the competition either, and formed a cartel to lower their prices, i.e. it was cheaper to transport by cart than by rail.

In order to keep the company alive, it would have been necessary for each of the shareholders to contribute another 15 forints, but they were not willing to do so, so the company ceased operations on 20 March 1828, i.e. after 7 months. The line was dismantled, the timber was sold for firewood, but there were beams that were used at the Chain Bridge. 

Cover photo: The track of the floating railway on the engraving of János Hofbauer