Cross-border rail travellers between Austria and Hungary woke early on Sunday to news that the Kálmán Imre EuroNight (EN 463) would reach Hegyeshalom border station 40 minutes behind schedule. ÖBB notified its Hungarian counterpart MÁV that overnight track maintenance around Salzburg had over-run, forcing the eastbound sleeper to run at reduced speed through sections of Upper Austria. Because the EuroNight shares track with morning Railjet and freight services, the knock-on effect also risked cascading delays on the Vienna–Budapest corridor. MÁV deployed a contingency plan that swapped locomotives in Győr rather than Budapest-Keleti, trimming the delay to 25 minutes on final arrival. For corporate mobility teams the incident is a reminder that summer engineering windows, though essential, can erode the time-saving advantage of overnight trains compared with first-wave flights. Travellers with onward meetings in Budapest should build at least an hour’s buffer and book fully flexible tickets. Both ÖBB and MÁV allow refunds or re-routing onto day services when delays exceed 60 minutes, but lounge access and meal vouchers only kick in above the two-hour mark. Looking ahead, ÖBB says it will publish a consolidated ‘possessions calendar’ for 2027 to give multinational employers earlier visibility of works affecting night-train connections from Munich and Zurich that also transit Austrian tracks.
