Railway crippled on Budapest-Vienna line as brutal freeze grips Hungary

Hungary is enduring its harshest winter in over a decade, and it was perhaps no surprise that the country’s creaking infrastructure would buckle under the strain. This morning, the vital railway linking Budapest to Vienna suffered a catastrophic failure, forcing trains to crawl along at a mere 10 km/h and plunging services into chaos with severe delays.

Railway crippled on Budapest-Vienna line

Kisalföld, the respected regional newspaper of north-western Hungary, reports that every train on the Budapest-Vienna route faces disruption owing to frost damage, freezing rain, and an outright breakage in the line. Hungary’s state railway operator, MÁV, has been compelled to battle through this once-in-a-decade onslaught of freezing temperatures and snow. In response, the company has imposed an emergency closure after the line fractured near the town of Tata.

Engineers are racing to patch up the damage, but repairs demand the shutdown of one track, slashing the line’s capacity to a trickle. A temporary 10 km/h speed restriction has been enforced, inevitably unleashing widespread delays across the entire Budapest-Vienna corridor.

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Severe delays set to linger even after initial fixes

Compounding the misery, the bone-chilling temperatures preclude any swift, lasting repairs for now. Once a makeshift fix is in place, speeds may creep up to 40 km/h on the affected stretch—but even that will ripple through schedules, ensuring further hold-ups.

While work continues, trains will be confined to a single track between Tatabánya and Almásfüzitő. Suburban services face outright cancellations, while long-distance routes brace for punishing delays. MÁV has pledged replacement buses and on-site assistance to guide beleaguered passengers through the disruption, index.hu wrote.

In-app purchases save MÁV Group passengers HUF 140 million

Passengers on MÁV Group trains and buses have saved around HUF 140m in the first month since a discount was offered for purchases in the MÁVPlusz application, group CEO Zsolt Hegyi said in a post on social media on Wednesday. Passengers used the 15% discount for in-app fare purchases over 850,000 times, Hegyi said.

Read also:

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