Hungaria () is a EuroCity train which runs between Budapest Nyugati and Hamburg - Altona, currently running with coaches of

MÁV Hungarian State Railways ( hu, Magyar Államvasutak, MÁV) is the Hungarian national railway company, with divisions "MÁV START Zrt." (passenger transport), "MÁV-Gépészet Zrt." (maintenance), "MÁV-Trakció Zrt." and "MÁV Cargo Zrt" (freig ...

. It is numbered as ''EC 252-253'' and runs daily, mainly with MÁV owned rolling stocks.

History

Earlier numbering included ''EC 170-171'', ''EC 174-175'', ''IEx 74/75'' and ''Ex 154/155''. The Hungaria international express train is one of the oldest express trains still in operation. Its first run between Budapest and Berlin via

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

was on 29 May 1960 with a diesel locomotive. It was the first train in the former

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

which reached a speed of 130 km/h. During the 1970s it ran as an

express train An express train is a type of passenger train that makes a small number of stops between its origin and destination stations, usually major destinations, allowing faster service than local trains that stop at most or all of the stations alo ...

between the capitals of

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

and

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

under train numbers ''Ex 154/155''. Electric locomotives were introduced in this period. The capacity of these locomotives just reached the necessary level. There were further improvements in the 1980s. MÁV planned to introduce a high level, international rail service with other railway companies of the Eastern Bloc. The Interexpress alliance was founded with the membership of the

Czechoslovakian , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

ČSD Czechoslovak State Railways (''Československé státní dráhy'' in Czech or ''Československé štátne dráhy'' in Slovak, often abbreviated to ČSD) was the state-owned railway company of Czechoslovakia. The company was founded in 1918 a ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

PKP, Hungarian and

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

DR. The contract was signed in 1986, one year before the establishment of the Western European EuroCity network. In the timetable year of 1986 the Hungaria became an interexpress train with train numbers ''IEx 74/75''. At this time the train terminated in East Berlin, at

Berlin-Lichtenberg station Berlin-Lichtenberg is a railway station in Berlin, Germany. It is located on the Eastern Railway, Wriezen Railway and Berlin Frankfurter Allee–Berlin-Rummelsburg railway lines in the Lichtenberg district. The station is also part of the Berli ...

, the main railway station of the city. During the next two years it had direct rolling stocks to and from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and in the summer period to

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

. During this period and usually on Hungarian territories it used the MÁV V63 locomotives. The Interexpress network was dissolved after the regime change in Eastern Europe, so Hungaria was operated out of this system’s scope.

EuroCity

The current system was implemented together with the EuroCity system in 1993. Its termination in Hungary was the Keleti Railway Station in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

until this was changed in 2018 alongside all EuroCity trains from this direction - the new terminus is the Nyugati Railway Station. The train has also been extended from Berlin to Hamburg with a total travel time of 13:49 for EC252 and 13:40 for EC253. As of 2018 the train is pulled by a Class 380 from Budapest to Prague and by Class 193 from Prague to Hamburg. The train has ten carriages: 3 Apmz carriages - first two are first class carriages and the third is the bistro, 1 Bmvz carriage, 4 Bpmz carriages, 1 Bbdpmz carriage and 1 Bpmbdz 294.1 carriage. This arrangement is switched when the train arrives in Prague, due to the placement of the railway lines there requiring the locomotive to change sides (the train has a 25 minute period in the timetable for this purpose). The train has carriages with wi-fi and allows for the transport of bicycles in the Bbdpmz carriage. All carriages are equipped with seats, all of them are able to run in a 200 km/h speed, they are air conditioned and it is possible to reserve a seat for an extra charge.

Current Route

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

*
Timetable of EC 172Timetable of EC 173Composition in 1988
{{EuroCity trains EuroCity International named passenger trains Named passenger trains of the Czech Republic Named passenger trains of Germany Named passenger trains of Hungary Named passenger trains of Slovakia Railway services introduced in 1960