Despite having featured in plans for decades, the proposed Budapest metro line M3 extension to Káposztásmegyer is unlikely to go ahead for many years, based on the current situation. The main obstacle is no longer a lack of money or political will: both the trains operating on the line and the control system supplied by a Russian manufacturer impose serious limits on any expansion.
Even short extension of the busiest Budapest metro line is fraught with difficulties
The investment currently being prepared would extend the line by just two stations. A 1.9-kilometre section would be built from the end of Árpád út, with new stops at Rózsa utca and Rákospalota-Újpest railway station. The project would also include an intermodal transport hub and a 240-space park-and-ride car park.
Even this short section would be difficult to deliver, as several properties would have to be acquired, including social housing, a family home and commercial premises caught up in probate proceedings. In 2021, the cost of compulsory purchases was estimated at 2.8 billion forints. But after property prices rose by 75 to 90 per cent, the bill could now exceed 5 billion forints. To make matters worse, the deadlines for accounting for EU funding fall at the end of 2029 and the end of 2030, leaving very little time because of the sanctions imposed on previous governments, Népszava wrote.
Five stations are needed – but the Russians make that impossible
The full, originally planned five-station extension to Káposztásmegyer faces an even more serious problem. According to a 2025 estimate, the entire investment would cost 158 billion forints. Much of the relevant documentation has since expired, meaning that parts of the planning and approval processes would have to be started again.
The biggest difficulty, however, is the project’s dependence on the Russian company Metrowagonmash. The refurbishment of Line 3 was commissioned from the Russian manufacturer under government pressure. The old Soviet carriages were modernised, but air conditioning was not installed – nor was a modern communications-based train control system, known as CBTC. Instead, the decision was taken to refurbish the existing Russian AVR system.
The current plans are likewise based on extending that system. Yet because the necessary software licences are involved, only a very limited section of the market would be able to carry out the work – in practice, the Russian manufacturer itself.
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This creates a particularly awkward situation. BKV has been locked in a legal dispute with Metrowagonmash for years, while the company also appears on the EU sanctions list as a Russian enterprise involved in the war against Ukraine. Although the Hungarian government exempted the maintenance of Budapest Metro Line 3 from the restrictions, the dependence on the Russian company remains.
The existing trains could still serve the two new stations. But the current fleet would be insufficient for the five-station extension to Káposztásmegyer. Without new trains, therefore, the full extension cannot be built, and BKK is planning on the basis that the existing metro carriages will remain in service for the next 20 years.
The Káposztásmegyer connection remains an almost unfathomably distant prospect – much like air-conditioned trains. István Tarlós, the Fidesz-backed mayor of Budapest at the time, said that air conditioning was unnecessary underground. Time and climate change have since proved him wrong: he made the wrong decision by failing to press Budapest’s case on the issue against the Orbán government.
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Hungary will pay for many years to come for every shit deal Orban made with the Russians. Remember crap Sputnik vaccine to protect you from Covid or massively overpriced Chinese ventilator machines that didn’t meet certification and were technically incompatible with Hungarian intensive care units.. Hungary will be on the hook to Russia for decades for buying another Russian reactor at Paks.
There must be a buyer for these lightly used metros in a second or third tier Russian city? It would be best to get to flog them while they’re still relatively young and to buy air conditioned replacements from a proper western manufacturer, for example, Alstom who already supplied the trains for M2 and M4 ensuring interoperability between the lines. Comparing the rolling stock between the lines is like going forward a century in technology. BKV would then also be able to buy ad-hoc replacements to expand the fleet or replace units that have prematurely reached end of life status.
The M3 trains are so sub-standard one has to wonder how large the kickbacks were to merit their purchase.