Rail Photo of the Month: December 2024

Ganz CSMG 1313

Location: Clark Ádám tér, Budapest, Hungary
Operator of Vehicle: BKV Zrt.
Date of Photo: May 4, 2011

About a week ago, I saw this story about a Budapest tram made entirely of Lego bricks.  The tram is made up of 1.8 million blocks, weighs 6 tons, measures nearly 12 meters (40 feet) long, and took 90 people nearly 7,000 hours to build over a two month span.  Before you ask, no, you can’t ride it.  However, you can add a brick to it if you happen to be in Budapest in the next few weeks, and it was shunted from a depot to the location where it is on exhibit currently.

The rest of Budapest’s trams, such as this one, are made out of more conventional materials than Lego bricks.  This particular tram has been in service since 1967, and is one of three of its type currently remaining in service.  The Budapest tram network is the busiest in the world in terms of ridership and is also one of the longest in terms of route miles in the world, with 108 miles (174 kilometers) of track.

For more photos of Budapest trams , please click here.