Revitalisation of railway branch line no. 78, Hungary

Hungary is the operator of 7395 kilometers of railway, which ranks its system-density 6th in Europe. However, the number of railway kilometers has been decreasing as many of the existing branch lines typically running through rural areas have stopped operating during the last decade. As villages, struggling with the lack of access to fundamental services, lose their direct connection with each other and with central settlements people are deprived of both the right to mobility and accessibility to services as well as the community-forming potential of being physically connected.

My project is to be taken as a local representation of a broader systematic concept. It aims to redefine people’s relation towards pre-existing infrastructural elements in their proximity and restore access to services that have been lost. This work identifies recurrent typological similarities of abandoned railway infrastructure as a key resource in order to avoid inefficiency in individual interventions. Based on the concept of repurposing abandoned railway infrastructure with services typically missing in peripheral areas I have identified three elements with recurrent typological similarities: tracks, station buildings and the trains themselves. Typological similarities allow a measure-coordinated alteration to be proposed for these structures, making them eligible to host new functions. My work proposes structural alterations on all 3 types of elements: 1. The reconfiguration of carriages makes them suitable for hosting services such as a post office, store, doctor’s office or even special space for students. As these are mobile elements they can move along the branchline, providing public services to many villages. 2. The standardisation of station buildings creates spaces eligible for increased community life triggered by a new role for stations. It also restores their function as official residences. 3. Finally, the railway tracks are an existing asset upon which not only the two interventions mentioned above can build, but also the interplay of these interventions would create an economic basis for the rails to regain their original function, which is creating spatial mobility and socio-economic integration of the region.