Absztrakt

The modernising effects of Hungarian rail travel was not as explosive as nineteenth-century people seem to have imagined, or even as they are perceived today. The study is based on a database of rail traffic records from 328 towns between 1890 and 1910. By 1890, 70% of these towns (229) had a railway station, and by 1900 the railway system reached 82 further towns. At the turn of the century, the average road distance between town centres and railway stations was 3.3 kilometres. There is a strong correlation (0.8) between the population of towns and the number of passengers getting on and off at the station. The volume of incoming cargo depended on the economically active local population working in industry and trade (correlation of 0.69). Due to contemporary economic policy, the effects of rail travel on urban development became more pronounced. Its modernising and gentrifying effects were perceptible mainly in towns, which fulfilled other conditions necessary for development, such as available capital and workforce. In the first half of the 1890s, the number of passengers multiplied as a large number of people, who had previously never or rarely travelled by rail, became regular passengers. The basis for increasing rail traffic was formed by the increased needs and demands of a gentrifying society. As the number of passengers soared, the average distance travelled by rail decreased. Mass production industries were the first to recognise the possibilities offered by the new mode of transport, which was not dependent on favourable weather conditions. Consequently, the largest volume of cargo was generated in towns with such industries. The beginnings of agglomeration and commuter transport is only perceptible in a few sporadic cases near Budapest.