ABSTRACT
The short-term future of the railway heritage protection policy is mostly determined by sponsorship from private capital and the available tendering funds. The Museum of Science, Technology and Transport and the Hungarian Railway Heritage Park can expand their railway collection only if they can obtain funding for it. The Hungarian history of railway heritage protection is made up of three distinct periods. During the first phase, which lasted from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1960s, the safekeeping, collection and presentation of railway objects were performed by a single institution, the Hungarian Royal Museum of Transport. The second period of railway heritage protection, which began in the 1960s and lasted until 1985, was characterised by theoretical and practical modernisation. The third period of Hungarian railway heritage protection, which leads them to the present times, is characterised by professionalisation, the activity of multiple players, and an ever-increasing social base.
