One of the most memorable railway accidents in Hungary happened in 1962, in the centre of Budapest. At Nyugati Railway Station, a train got out of control while moving in reverse and broke through the iron-and-glass frontage of the station designed by the company of Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel Tower, and crashed onto Lenin Boulevard (Grand Boulevard today).

On 4 October 1962, in the early afternoon, steam locomotive 411 began shunting ten rail carriages into the waiting hall. However, due to negligence, the conductor’s car behind the locomotive was not properly connected to the rest of the wagons. Although the engine driver noticed the error, he was no longer able to prevent the accident—thus, the entire train detached from the conductor’s car and started moving unstoppably towards the main entrance of the waiting hall.

At 2.21 p.m., the train knocked out the buffer, and after sliding nearly 30 metres, it bashed through the glass wall of the waiting hall.

At last, it stopped in the turn lane of Lenin Boulevard. Budapesters at the time joked that the train only stopped there because there was a Soviet film playing at the Szikra Cinema across the street.

Thanks to the rapid detection of the malfunction, the passengers in the waiting hall were warned about the emergency via loudspeaker in due time, so the incident did not result in any fatalities, but an old lady suffered serious injuries.

The famous photo capturing the derailed train was taken by László Mikó, an employee of the Hungarian Telegraphic Office (MTI) at the time.

Earlier, similar train overshoots occurred at Déli and Keleti Railway Stations as well, but the incident also resembles the iconic Montparnasse train accident in Paris, where the locomotive hit the floor of the Place de Rennes ten metres below.

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