Budapest Cog-wheel Railway

This guide to the Budapest Cog-wheel Railway opens on a snowbound night in January 1987, when a train lost its brakes on the descent through these hills. It traces the line's roots to 1874, one of Europe's earliest cogwheel railways built to carry Budapest's wealthy up into the cool forests of the Buda hills, and the decades officials spent trying to shut it down as a money-loser, even testing a sixteen-seat gasoline railbus to save cash. Ride it up past the same steep grade and view over Buda's rooftops.