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This is a(n at least) 30-years-old Hungarian railroaders' joke, I heard it from my grandfather.


A man wants to do a business trip. He goes to the ticket office at his local station in Göd:
"Lady, a ticket please for Tokyo!"
"We can't sell a ticket as far."
"Alright, how far can you give me a ticket?"
She checks the tickets she has, finishes a minute later and replies:
"Until Budapest."

So he buys the ticket until Budapest. At Budapest Keleti, he goes to the ticket office:
"Sir, a ticket please for Tokyo!"
"We can't sell a ticket as far."
"Alright, how far can you give me a ticket?"
She checks the tickets he has, finishes five minutes later, and replies:
"Until Moscow."

So he buys the ticket until Moscow. Once there, he goes to the ticket office:
"Comrade, a ticket please for Tokyo!"
"We can't sell a ticket as far."
"Alright, how far can you give me a ticket?"
He checks the tickets she has, finishes half an hour later and replies:
"Until Vladivostok."

...so slowly our man gets to Tokyo. There he has a wonderful week, then wants to go home.

He goes to the ticket office at Tokyo Central, and asks:
"Lady, a ticket please for Göd!"
to which she replies (with accent):
"Göd Uppel or Göd Lowel?"

That joke travels well.

My grandfather told me the same story about a journey from Upper Cwmtwrch (or was it Lower ?) to Istanbul and back.

Breaking the rules

This happened around 80 years ago. My grandfathers' grandfather was on vacation in Bulgaria. One day, he'd receive a telex from his brother-in-law, who was the stationmaster in his home village Monor, that just read:

"Öreg?" (=Old man?)

To which he replied:

"Mehet!" (=It can go!)

...and the result of this cryptic exchange was that one week later, the international Balt-Orient Express met upon an unexpected stop signal in the station of Monor...


Keeping the rules

This second may have travelled well like my joke, but it may also have happened in real life (the described politician and railway fanatic was like that) - some 125 years ago.

The railway minister was travelling in a couchet compartment on an express, and was busy reading some reports. But the conductor came:
"Tickets please!"

Being too occupied with his work, and surprised that he is not recognised, he just replied: "I'm Gábor Baross, the railway minister!"

To which the conductor replied, "G'day Sir, and I'm Istán Nagy, conductor. Tickets Please!"

The nonplussed minister stood up, took the tickets from his wallet and presented them.

The next day, conductor István Nagy learnt that upon ministerial orders, he was promoted to chief conductor.

I heard something very similar from someone working at the CIWL who did the rail catering in the TEE trains on the Paris to Lille route in the 1980's.
In 1981 shortly after he was nominated, the French Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy was travelling by train back home to Lille one evening, and had a meal in the train, for which he paid by cheque. The CIWL employee said something like "May I please see your identification card?" which is normal procedure when receiving a cheque, in order to check that the cheque is not stolen and to write the card details on the back of the cheque. Mr. Mauroy replied "I am Pierre Mauroy". The employee then said "Mr. Mauroy, may I please see your identification card?"

On the subject of the ticket story the same thing exists in France with Châlons-sur-Marne and Chalon-sur-Saône.
Actually things were not that bad in Hungary, judging from the small experience I have. I once bought a ticket in Bratislava from Bratislava to Budapest, in the 1980's, it was quite complicated, I could pay as far as the Czechoslovak border in local currency, but I had to pay the Hungarian part of the journey in foreign hard currency (valuta). On the other hand I once bought a ticket in Budapest, also in the 1980's, from Budapest to Nové Zámky (Érsekújvár) in Slovakia (ČSSR of the time). No problem, I paid the whole journey in Hungarian Forint, it took only a minute or so to ask for the ticket, have it issued, and pay (and I don't speak Hungarian).

Thanks for those nice anacdotes - et un clin d'oeil secret d'un parleur d'une langue avec beaucoup d' accents à une autre, dans ce forum de langue des gens handicapés des accents

I still wonder tough, how the ticket joke worked out in a British (or French) context - say, was an Istambul ticket office considered so much better than a Welsh one?

Well, we had a different experience. We traveled by air to Vienna (in 2006), had a tour and then continued to Lake Balaton, where we had rented a house. The friendly guy at the Vienna West ticket office advised us to buy the return ticket in Hungary because it would come out much cheaper (I hope his superior will not read this).
Now that proved to be rather complicated although my soon-to-be-ex-wife did speak this denture-rattling language quite well. In Balatonszemes (no guarantee for the spelling) they did have wonderful hand-printed Edmondson tickets (the good old cardboard thingies) and an original pre-war Bakelite telephone, but were not allowed to issue international tickets. At Budapest, so we were advised, we should buy the tickets when changing to the Vienna express. Only, the train from Balaton arrived with one hour and a half delay, so we had to catch the express at a Budapest suburb station, en route. Where again, no international tickets were available, so we were advised to buy a ticket to the border station on board of the train and another to Vienna, once arrived in Austria.
We DID get the tickets, at 50% off, payable cash, which the train conductor and her assistant pocketed without further ado (I hope, again, that their superior will not read this).
At least now I have a good explanation for the rather downtrodden state of the MAV.