Railway strike restarts in Hungary

The Free Trade Union of Railway Workers (VDSZSZ) has restarted a strike campaign which it originally launched on February 1 and which had been suspended on several occasions since, reports MTI. The current action began at midnight on Sunday, and there is currently no train traffic at Budapest's Déli station, while service continues to be interrupted at Keleti and Nyugati stations.

At Déli, there are no arrivals or departures listed. At around 8 a.m., one train was about to depart from Nyugati. At 7:10, a train to Košice (Hungarian: Kassa), Slovakia, was still waiting at Keleti, thought it should have left at 5:35 a.m..

László Gelencsér, a leader of the VDSZSZ, said that trains leaving the stations are doing so without having brake tests performed by seasoned workers, a situation he said was dangerous. But Tibor Sigulinszki, a spokesman for railway company MÁV, told MTI that the trade union should "prove" its allegations.

Sigulinszki added that trains were running on both the north and south shores of Lake Balaton. Budapest can be reached from Miskolc with a transfer in Hatvan, and "zoning" trains are stopping at every station to serve the capital's suburban traffic.

Trains are also running on the Győr-Sopron, Sopron-Szombathely and Szombathely-Szentgotthárd lines, but their schedules have been modified as a result of the strike announced by the VDSZSZ.

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