LIMA TRENINI [IT]

Exploration #94. These empty buildings hosted a famous factory of train modelling.

THE BLUE FUNICULAR [IT]

Eploration #57. The blue funicular. The funicular was inaugurated in 1907. In just 18 minutes it bridged the 600 metre difference in height from the lake shore below to the beautiful belvedere where there was also a restaurant. At a time when travel was not as easy as it is today, this was a very popular tourist destination, so much so that combined tickets were sold that included a train trip from Milano Centrale, a steamboat trip on the lake and a ride on the funicular up to the belvedere for 10.20 lire on weekdays or 14 lire on holidays.

The funicular operated with ups and downs for many years, transporting thousands of tourists until 1977 when the concession expired and it was abandoned.

As soon as I enter the old arrival station I am greeted by carriage number 2, carriage number 1 is obviously at the valley station. The carriage, which had 33 seats divided into 4 compartments, still retains its elegant Art Nouveau style and its beautiful original blue colour. The rest of the building is occupied by the engine room. Unfortunately, the entire traction apparatus is in a state of disrepair, but still very interesting: the large winch, many mechanisms for transmitting motion, the brakes and the pair of Oerlikon electric motors, each with a power of about 22 kW are still present.

In 2020, thanks to a €200,000 grant from the Lombardy Region, the pre-feasibility project for the reactivation was drawn up, which envisaged a total cost for the reopening of approximately €10 million, in addition to establishing the economic sustainability of the structure for tourism purposes in the event of reopening.

RED STAR TRAIN GRAVEYARD [HU]

Exploration #34 Red star train graveyard. The red star train graveyard place was once one of the most important railway repair workshops in Hungary. For the residents of Budapest this place goes by the name of Istvántelek and for the rest of the world, that name is Red Star Train Graveyard, the place where trains went to die.

The Istvántelek Train Yard, aka red star train graveyard, was built in Budapest between 1902 and 1905, going on to serve as a sprawling, modern repair facility for the city’s trains. In fact, one of the workshop halls was so large at 24,000 square meters that it was noted as Budapest’s largest building in 1902.

In this train graveyard it is possible to find some MAV class 301 locomotive that was the star of transportation from 1911 to 1914 and the huge and powerful MAV class 424 locomotive another engineering marvel that Hungary produced weighting an impressive 137 tons. The current collection of rusting gems includes also German freight cars that very well could have transported Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz during Nazi occupation.
More than 100 locomotives and railcars are here and around it in the fields rusting. The colossal locomotives were brought to this place to be repaired and transported to the Budapest Railway Museum but the museum does not have money for their restoration.