A Hungarian train bound for towns near the Austrian border with several hundred migrants on board was stopped near one of the country’s four main refugee camps and the migrants taken off, the state news agency MTI reports.

The train stopped at Bicske, around 40 kilometres west of Budapest, and police took the migrants off and directed them on to buses to take them to the nearby camp, MTI reported from the scene.

AFP estimated there were around 200-300 migrants on board.

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The train, which left the main Keleti station at 11.20am was due to split, with three carriages to travel to Szombathely and the rest to Sopron, both near Hungary’s western border with Austria.

The section going to Sopron was packed with people standing in the corridors.

A second train headed for Gyor, also near the Austrian border, also left Keleti with around 100 migrants on board, as well as several dozen police wearing riot helmets, an AFP reporter said.

There were around 1000 migrants on the platform and on the main concourse.

On Tuesday, Hungarian authorities stopped migrants taking trains to Austria and Germany after thousands travelled to these countries on Monday.

They closed Budapest’s Keleti station to migrants, leaving about 2000 people stranded and leading to a tense stand-off with demonstrations and scuffles.

Then early on Thursday the station was fully reopened and hundreds of people stormed inside, cramming into trains.

Hungarian Railways said, however, there would be no trains going to western Europe.

“I think this was a trick by the government, the police and the train company. The train looked like it was going to Germany,” Marton Bisztrai, a volunteer at Keleti station, said.

“They just want to get people the hell out of here and into camps. I think this was a very cynical trick.”