Narrow-gauge railways in Hungary

The former Austria-Hungary empire had a narrow-gauge rail network thousands of kilometres in length, most of it using Bosnian gauge 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) or 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge, constructed between 1870 and 1920.

Following the Treaty of Trianon some railways were cut by the new border, many remained on the territory of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Due to a lack of intact roads, following World War II in many places narrow-gauge railway was the only reasonable way to get around.

In 1968 the Communist government started to implement a policy to dismantle the narrow-gauge network in favour of road traffic.

Freight haulage on the few remaining lines continued to decline until 1990 from when a patchwork of railways was gradually taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes.