With the toot of a horn, the ring of a bell and the hiss of air brakes, an unusual rail vehicle still slips out of a Budapest depot to serve the city’s tram network — a role it has performed for a century. Known locally as mukis, these wood-sided freight trams draw electricity from overhead wires like the city’s famous yellow passenger cars, but they do not carry commuters.
Acquired by the city in 1926, the mukis were born of necessity after much of Budapest’s freight infrastructure was wrecked during World War I. ‘Engineers at the time designed an electric drive system mainly using parts from vehicles damaged in the war, as well as parts from vehicles that had already been designated for scrapping,’ says Adam Zadravecz, head of tram vehicle development and technology at BKV.
Their original mission was moving goods and raw materials to and from factories, but their duties expanded over time. After World War II they helped clear war ruins. In the 1960s some of the original fleet of 40 received snowploughs so they could keep tram lines open in winter — a task they still perform. Today mukis also handle nighttime maintenance runs and tow broken-down trams back to depots for repair.
Decades of piecemeal repairs left each vehicle a patchwork of components, and by 2018 the fleet needed more thorough refurbishment. ‘When they were manufactured in the 1920s, they were extremely simple, extremely puritanical devices,’ says Nandor Meixner, head of vehicle maintenance at the Ferencváros depot. During refurbishment crews made modest operator-friendly changes, adding a seat and cabin heating to ease the driver’s work.
Despite those updates, Zadravecz stresses that the mukis’ essential character is unchanged. Their maintenance costs are very low because, compared with modern vehicles full of complex electronics, there is little that can fail. ‘People say that it can be repaired with a hammer and a file, and that’s absolutely true,’ he says.
Driving a muki requires special training and what Meixner calls a particular ‘feel’ for the machine. ‘It is not enough to just drive, to know the signs and instructions, you also need to know the vehicle itself. We used to say that the driver has to drive this vehicle with his butt,’ he jokes.
Of the original 40 mukis, six have survived in Budapest and three remain in active service. As Zadravecz puts it, their value lies in their simplicity and in the fact that they still exist and are available to the city.
