Camaraderie and goulash
The Magyar motto jól enni, jól inni, jól élni means eat well, drink well, live well. Hungary’s communist heads of state clearly took it to heart as they swanned around the country in their own private trains, exhorting the workers to exceed their quotas and, occasionally, entertaining Western royalty and presidents. Nearly 50 of these vintage carriages and locomotives have now been acquired by the private company MAV Nostalgia and restored for tourist trips. My maiden journey is on the Royal Hungarian Express, chartered for three days by the UK tour operator, Great Railway Journeys, as the highlight of a fortnight’s Central European itinerary, which also includes city hotel overnights and excursions. I join 38 British holidaymakers who have already visited Prague and Berlin, at Budapest’s Nyugati station, built by Eiffel. In keeping with the spirit of the Hungarian motto, we sip champagne in the wonderfully over-the-top royal waiting room, designed for Emperor and King Franz Joseph and his wife Queen Elisabeth. “Heathrow was never like this,” I hear one of my new comrades mutter. There is no doubt about the star of the show; steam locomotive 424.247 is waiting for us at the end of the platform, hissing quietly and working up a head of steam for our journey to Balaton, the Hungarian costa and Europe’s largest freshwater lake. The train is one of only three left of its class of 1924 — the 424 locomotives are probably the best known and certainly the most successful of Hungary’s steam trains. Not surprisingly, it attracts an admiring crowd on the platform. It is hard not to give the royal wave as we pull out of the station to a piercing 100-decibel whistle, scattering pigeons high above Budapest’s suburbs. Once on the move we scramble about like excited children exploring the rest of the train, which is made up of several carriages of varying design and vintage. The restaurant car and the bar come with marquetry panelling, pristine tablecloths and fresh flowers. It is nice that none of the interior has been too tarted up. The acres of velvet plush and velour, once the height of communist chic, have been retained, though, mercifully, there are a few useful 21st-century additions, like power points and modern showers.
Individual compartments for two, with bunk beds, a washbasin and hanging space, are made up into sitting rooms during the day, but if you want to dress up in your party frock for dinner you have to banish your partner to the corridor. Taking a shower involves trotting along the corridor with your washbag and towel. Only the three large, swanky presidential cabins have their own en suites; the lucky occupants on our train offered us all “at home” visits.
The hub of the operation is the bar car, where the singer and pianist, Apollo, belts out soulful Frank Sinatra numbers and pounds the ivories. By 11am on the first day many of the passengers are well into the complimentary wine and beer.
Huge chunks of Lake Balaton roll past as we tuck into our lunch of peppers stuffed with cheese, goulash and sour cherry strüdel, with a choice of six Hungarian wines. The main components of Magyar cuisine are goose fat, sausages, speck, cream and rich pancakes and, on the train, it looks as if we are all exceeding our norms. Luckily, there is an excursion to Lake Heviz after lunch for a wallow in its warm thermal spa. We work off more calories that night, tripping the light fantastic in the bar — a terrific camaraderie has developed among the passengers, and the staff soon become part of it.
The managing director of MAV Nostalgia, who is travelling with us, makes it his business to get the women dancing; the chef de train, Zsuzsanna, works her considerable charms on the males. Under her uniform she sports a Black Watch waistcoat — as a keen Highland dancer she spends all her holidays in Scotland.
During the first day we are invited in shifts to ride the footplate with the elite of the country’s train drivers, for which we are awarded a certificate. This is like being cast into a Dante’s inferno of clanking, panting, hissing, hooting and screeching, accompanied by hot smelly blasts from the glowing oil-fired boiler. Riding the footplate, I decide, is exclusively for rail aficionados.
The drivers in their grease-streaked caps and overalls, all with full moustaches, remain jolly and jokey throughout the invasion of their space. For many of the passengers (notably the male variety) the ride is the hit of the day.
Like all prima donnas, 424.247 is temperamental and we have to stop en route several times to refit the bearing in the coupling rods.
For our second day we have a new star, the gleaming red Americandesigned diesel electric M61 to haul us south to Kecskemét, Szeged and the Great Hungarian Plain, the Puszta. Definitely less romantic but considerably more reliable.
Back in Budapest the favourite excursion is to the Children’s Railway (see page 4).
On other excursions we ride on the toytown narrow-gauge Szilvasvarad railway through stunning deciduous forests and take a coach trip to the Aggtelek caves, which have the largest stalactite system in Europe.
At Lajosmizse we exchange the train for horse-drawn carriages to drive round the Puszta, where Europe’s first cowboys, the baggy-trousered csikos, give us a demonstration of horsemanship.
Afterwards we live up to the Hungarian spirit by downing copious litres of wine, consuming a vast traditional meal and joining in the folk dancing with gusto.
At the end of the evening we tumble out of the horse-drawn carriages and gather around a bonfire, which had been lit by the side of the track. On cue, its lights blazing to welcome us back, our home-from-home on wheels pulls up inch-perfect alongside.
I feel like clapping.
