Summer 2019 V63 Gala

630028 Székesfehérvár

431001 Budapest Deli complete with heritage liveried stock. The red star omitted from the locos front stands out in its current state…

630012 at Kelenfold going down the Pecs line

431078 Ferihegy

432256 Kobanya Kispest with a Nyugati suburban working. Sadly these are first on the list to go from December with yet more Flirt deathtraps on the way.

431192 Ferihegy

One more! 630045 Ferihegy

This summer, MAV organised two “retro” weekends on table 29 around the north shore of Lake Balaton. Despite only a few weeks notice, a plan was hatched to get over for the second over the first weekend of August 2019. These weekends have replaced the previous years use of booked summer M61 or M62 power on certain trains and instead concentrate things into gala weekends. Roll on the 2020 event hopefully!

M40 114 at Aszofo on Saturdays’ 0908 Tapolca – Balatonfured stopper, vice DMU. This loco was not in the best of health and staggering around, so was looped here for the Nohab it should have made at Balatonfured.

Said Nohab, M61 019 in a shiny coat of orange paint, at Tapolca prior to working the 1238 Zahony. As usual the majority of Hungarian interest was aimed at this loco. On the left is 418126 which had worked the Pecs-Tapolca turn.

Remaining trains were in the hands of usual M41 Ganz. 418148 has 418149 dead inside on the 1438 Tapolca – Budapest. I had planned to be on this rather than alongside as winner ‘149 had been dragged down from Szekesfehervar to work it, but had duly blown up at departure time so ‘148 was taken off a later departure and bolted back on to drag it back just like it had brought it down!

M62 194 in full retro livery, complete with heritage painted stock, is seen near Tapolca on the last stretch of the 0649 ex Zahony’s journey.

The ‘classic’ M62 was provided by M62 089 which departs Tapolca on the 1540 Budapest. The genny van is tucked inside to supply the EMU-trailer style coaches which are the usual summer stock for these trains. It also helped the passengers avoid suffocation from the amount of thick black clag being produced in some fine Sergei style.

Sunday now and after spinning some electrics on the south side I did the boat move across, M62 194 is seen again between Badascony and Badacsonylábdihegy on the 0649 Zahony – Tapolca.

Due to M40 114’s inept performance, M40 209 was sent down to do most of the work. The pair are seen at Balatonfured paired nose-to-nose prior to working the 1740 Tapolca local. Hungarian wikipedia reckons that M40 209 is actually ex M40 225. Either way it sounded much louder too.

The M40s at Revfulop crossing an M41.

MAV even got into the spirit of it with M41 allocations, M41 165 was a nice kick out on the 1838 Tapolca – Budapest having run to Tapolca ECS. As a Hatvan loco i’m not entirely sure how it managed to get involved, but here it is rolling into Badascony.

Having failed miserably to plan much for the end of the year but with leave to burn, word of a tour using SIX Hungarian M61s for a dayout was too tempting once I’d made the fatal mistake of even taking a look at covering it. With short notice and the need avoid the worse of the pre-Christmas flight ching it just happened that the Sunday Stansted-Ljubljana was available without breaking the bank – oh well I know how to get from there to Budapest!

My luck was well in with 664116 doing the honors on the Citadella and I really hope I can get back before the wires – now looking as good as complete – are energized. Late Spring/Summer 2016 seems to be the claim, but will it really take them that long?

A winter Tuesday (still in thick fog!) probably isn’t the ideal time for a tour to Tapolca, but (big thanks to Ferenc for sorting tickets out) with no fewer than six – six – M61s on the front it was enjoyable if plain silly.

NoHABS for days…

So that left just one more move, 431 271 taking me to Ferihegy for the flight home. My 284th winner of 2015 over nine trips abroad, here’s to many more in 2016 and a big thanks to everyone who has made this an excellent year.

Part 2: Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria

A much needed full week away! There will be a couple of parts to this as I managed to take quite a few photos, by my standards anyway, and as we did a whistlestop tour there is enough variety to (hopefully) keep it interesting.

So having crossed the Danube at Komarno – Komaron, we were in Hungary for until Monday afternoon, when the tension was mounting as a V43 whisked us east towards Hodos. The week basically hinged on this – we were looking for a possible last blast on the Citadella but with two ‘Tony’ 2016 silent junk out and about, would we be bowled? No, 664106! They even found a 363 to work forward, Thanks Very Much SZ! We then pottered around Croatia on 2044s for a couple of days before going for a three-legged 664 move on the Friday – both Citadella’s and the overnight. Once again we’d pleased the right people as all three dropped ‘biblical volume’ 664s – even got the pen out twice taking me to 11 of the 20. Don’t know if I’ll get another though with the wires well on the way now… After the (good for engines, not much sleep!) overnight we had a leisurely day around Lake Balaton then just a long way home on the Sunday, Gyor-Vienna-Brno-Stansted, just to add an extra pair of countries to the week!

Captions on individual photos.

For the previous few days photos from Slovakia please click ‘ere!

This was only a quick weekend hashed together and hopes of more 664 drag action after last year were dashed as the juice was turned back on a week or so beforehand. However we still had the Citadella 664 and MAV’s 2015 Balaton diesel gala with M61 017 joined by a M62 this year.

Captions on the phots

Six day wander around Hungary to pick up some of the summer kick outs this year…

Day 1 was around Debrecen after flying to the local airstrip (it cannot be described as an airport) from Luton

Day 2 popped across to Oradea to spin in a couple of CFR GMs then a long slog west to Gyor via Budapest

Day 3 was the Lake Balaton Ganz fest then the M61 back to Budapest from Tapolca

Day 4 was up to Miskolc for the day – absolutely no sniff of an M62 unlike every other report!

Day 5 bit of a circle to Szombathely out on the 232 but due to no others being out back via Celldomolk and more Ganz

Day 6 just around Budapest as couldn’t hack another early start to do much else!

No full captions (yet, maybe) but loco number and location provided, link to erg post for more gen

As these are very late, I’ll get them up without captions. These will (probably) be added when I get some more time.

Basically – went to Hungary, had lots of dud MAV locos and partook in another most enjoyable Mercia Tour…

After Slovakia, I was off to Hungary for four days based around some interesting workings they were providing for the summer timetable (covered the last weekend so left it a bit last minute!) and a general spin around Budapest and Gyor on MAV and GySev power.

Four day bash for the two day “Pre-Emptive Strike” Mercia Charters Tour which featured the passenger workings for Floyd’s new toy 56101 (now 650001) and also a bit of 86215 and ex-DSB MY1125. Spent most of the rest of the time doing some nedding around Budapest out of Keleti and Nyugati, where blue locos with yellow panels and near enough blue and grey stock abounded, and also a trip on the Children’s Railway.