During the first years of the beginning of the railway traffic came out that the condition of the railway lines must be followed with attention constantly partly for safety- partly for economic reasons. For this purpose was established the line-inspection service, whose task is to:

• give/provide true information about the momentary condition of the railway tracks continuously by doing the prescribed examinations and measurements
• indicate if it is necessary to do work for the sake of the safety
• and always give the most economical date of the execution of the maintenance

At MÁV (Hungarian State Railways) under Oszkár Bereznay's direction in the 50's started the experiments to construct an own designed and constructed track measuring car, which was commissioned in 1955. On all lines of the MÁV the mechanical track measuring and other inspections should be performed centrally by an independent directorate, which was organized for this purpose. That is why the Central Superstructure Inspection Directorate (CSID) was formed in 1959, which performed besides the mechanical track measuring all the line-inspection examinations (examination of materials of rails, examination of superstructural materials, examination of weldings, examination of railway earthworks, etc.) that could be done in a modern way and economically within the frame of a central organization.

The CSID has performed the set tasks successfully for more decades. Compared to the beginning its range of activity has been broaden with many examination- and measuring technique systems.

Following the Hungarian change of economic regime after 1990 the organization of the Hungarian State Railways undergone a considerable change. This entailed the change of the railway construction- and the track maintenance way service and within this the organizational modification of the Central Superstructural Directorate, too. In 1993 the directorate was incorporated into the newly formed MÁV Track Management Center.

In 1996 seeing the greater possibilities inhering in an independent organization it was changed into an organization , which was a property of MÁV in 100%. This organization has operated under the name of "MÁV Central Rail and Track Inspection Ltd." since 1st September 1996.

The Central Rail and Track Inspection Ltd. provides services on several fields for the Hungarian and international railway companies. Among these the most important are the following:

• geometric measurement of railway tracks
• ultrasonic material inspection of rails
• profile measurement of rails
• corrugated rail wear measurement of rails
• geometric- and material examination of rail weldings
• examination of railway bridges
• superstructural material qualification in the factory or in the track
• examination of railway earthworks
• development of measuring- and test equipments
• modernization of regulations and the track diagnostics

Our company is resolved to develop the quality of its services continuously and to check its activities. Following this purpose it inaugurated/initiated the ISO-9001 system in 2000.