Wednesday 29 March 2023

New Or Retro : Budapest Metro (2)

Three Bus Stations Or Two?

fbb suspects thay this bus station is no longer in regular use. It has a few spartan shelters and you would guess it served the old and decaying station before lots of new stuff happend. Even Google Maps only shows a few routes in the nine hundreds (school services?) as calling there.

A second problem is that Google Maps (inc Google Earth) is way behind reality. Diagonally opposite the old bus station, the aerial view shows a car park ...
... and a large area (above upper right) waiting for something to happen. What has now happened is a gurt big shopping block.
Curving in from from east (left) to south (right) are the tracks for tram 1, not yet built in the aerial view. Here is the corner sans tram tracks ...
.. and here is the corner with tram and with shops - same coner, honest!!
Then just round to the right is the Tram 1 terminus ...
... now with the bonus of those super duper nine segment mega slinky trams ...
... this time looking back towards the corner and the old bus station - now mostly a bus park. None of the above exists on Google Earth aerial view.

Travelling a few yards  further south and gazing to our right we see that distinctive building with the lantern glazed roof.
Here you will find toilets ...
... cash machine ...
... and a Bufe.
fbb will leave his readers to wrestle with the translation from Hungarian into English!

Was this once (or is it still?) the entrance to the Kelenfold Station station, i.e. the terminus of Metro line 4? The newer entrance is just past this building, alongside the end of the old decaying station ...
... complete with lifts, steps and escalators leading very much down.
Turning back, we see that the new bus station is associated with the lantern roof building plus Bufe.
Here is its aerial view ...
... revealing that it is used by out-of-town (yellow) routes in the 7xx series.
All of the above is on the east side of the main line tracks and station. But over on the west ...
... is the third bus station. This seems to be the home of the blue buses of BKK, the city's transport consortium.
Here, again, we have stairs and lifts to the nether regions ...
... where the whole lot is linked by a broad corridor ... 
... all ably illustrated by a video (5 min).
Google Streetview shows this area as decidedly unfinished and rather tatty.
It is better now. It looks as if the west side is being developed as the main entrance route for car drivers and/or their passengers. An old bit of goods siding ...
... is becoming a large car park"!
Once again, before ...
... and, from roughly the same point, after.
But we do need to go back in time to explore the origins of the Metro. It's age might surprise our reader.

It was once known as the "Millennium Metro" - but which Millennium? And this bloke is also involved.
Stunning whiskers!

And a final question.

How many so-called interchanges in the UK match Kelenfold?

 Next Budapest Metro blog : Thursday 30th March 

3 comments:

  1. Andrew Kleissner29 March 2023 at 07:08

    You’ll be pleased to know that Kelenfold station is supposed to be being revamped as part of the Transport Museum.

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  2. Andrew Kleissnner

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  3. The 900 series routes are night buses.

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