Hungary’s longest narrow gauge railway system

After a fascinating visit in November 2023 to the last narrow gauge line to be run by Hungary’s state railway operator, I am making return visit to the country to travel and photograph the country’s longest surviving 760mm gauge forestry railway network.

This is a 109km (68-mile) long system in the south-west of Hungary near the border with Slovenia that begins in a small town called Lenti before heading east to its base at Csömödér and then south to a terminus at a remote spot called Kistolmács.

Besides this 33km (21 mile) long main route, along which seasonal passenger trains operate alongside the timber traffic, there is also a branch north from Lenti and four branches off the line south of Csömödér, none of which see any passenger traffic.

The Csömödér state forestry railway (Csömödér ÁEV) is actually a fairly recent uniting of two separate lines, with a route north from Lenti to Szilvágy having been joined in the year 2000 by construction of a link from north-east of Lenti to Csömödér, enabling passenger services, which first ran in 1949 to be extended to Lenti.

Staying in Lenti from 11-14 June 2024 I was too early in the season to travel the 19kms (12 miles) from Csömödér to Kistolmács, with daily services confined to two daily round trips on the “new” 14km (9 mile) route from Lenti to Csömödér, where there is a chance to see some of the forestry activity.

Both passenger and timber trains along the system are powered by small four wheel 1950s-vintage C50 class diesels, with the line apparently having a fleet of ten, half of which I saw in action during my first visit to Csömödér on 11 June, with one more in a shed and three others seemingly dumped.

In addition to these locos the Csömödér system has two of the larger MK48 B-B locos – the type I had seen in use on the Balatonfenyes railway (MK48-1005/2015) along with a delightful Romanian 0-8-0T Resita steam loco (490-2002) named Ábel, which can be seen below and is used on a limited number of days during the April-September operating season.

The forestry railway’s station in Lenti is slightly south of a level crossing just east of the main railway station and has an exhibition about the history of the railway and forestry activity in this region of Hungary called Zala County. There is a rail link here to the adjacent timber processing plant.

From here the two-coach train heads north to cross both the road and standard gauge railway then briefly heads east alongside the main line before turning in a north-easterly direction into an area of dense and muddy forest, eventually passing a triangular junction with a route north to Szilvágy, then heading south-east towards Csömödér.

Approaching the railway’s HQ and principal timber yard, the narrow gauge route makes a rickety crossing of the standard gauge line then reaches a junction of the line on to Kistolmács before reversing back into Csömödér ÁEV station, passing the loco sheds and bogie wagons loaded with timber for trans-shipment onto standard gauge wagons.

Spending several hours at Csömödér between arrival from Lenti at 11.20 and returning there on the second NG departure of the day at 15.45 meant a chance to see the little railway at work, with one C50 loco shunting wagons in the timber yard, another arriving with timber from further south, two passenger workings and finally a works train, also arriving from the Kistolmács direction.

For the record, locos seen in use on 11 June were C50-401 (Lenti service), 402 (works train), 405 (loaded timber arrival), 407 (shunting timber yard) and 409 on a special one coach working from Lenti. Locos C50-404/406 were dumped in the timber yard and the chassis of 403 was in the shed area, where one other loco had the number 347.

What makes Csömödér rather delightful is just how relaxed it feels. There is no officious intervention as you wander around the vast stacks of timber photographing the little engines as they shunt their trainloads of logs to be unloaded and transferred to road vehicles or standard gauge wagons.

Given that the vast majority of the forestry rail system is freight only, it seems a shame that the company does not make more use of its steam locomotive and run regular special trains up and down the handful of freight-only branch lines that lead off the Lenti-Kistolmács route.

Getting to Lenti from the Hungarian capital was pretty straightforward, and involved a three-hour trip on an Inter-City service from Budapest Deli to Zalaegerszeg, then an hour-long ride on a closure-threatened 49km (31 mile) branch line that runs in a south-westerly direction to a terminus at Rédics, one stop and 5kms (3 miles) beyond Lenti.

There are five round trips daily on this branch line, and connections at Zalaegerszeg are very tight, so when my 15.00 IC service from Budapest was running 10 minutes late I asked the guard to get the connecting railcar towards Lenti held, which he obligingly did.

For a break from the NG action it is worth taking a solitary eight-minute trip from Lenti on the standard gauge railcar to the remote and desolate terminus at Rédics, as seen below, from where it appears that the line once continued west into what is now Slovenia – the border being only a mile or so further on.

Most of the five daily working here stop for around 45 minutes, giving plenty of time to photograph the station wilderness and also to head across the road to a curious food store, where my welcome discovery was a chilled can of Czech Staropramen Dark (4.4%) costing a modest HUF430 (90p).

Lenti is a small and pleasant town with a huge thermal spa complex opposite the narrow gauge station which must bring a huge influx of tourists in season. I stayed at the comfortable Hotel Zéta, just a few minutes’ walk west of the main station, where I seemed to be the only guest and where bed and breakfast cost £43.80 per night.