Nearly five weeks after the train disaster that killed 57 people, the rail link between Athens and Thessaloniki, the second city in northern Greece, partially resumed on Monday.
It was on this route between Athens and Thessaloniki, in Tempé, near the town of Larissa, that on the evening of February 28, a passenger train collided head-on with a freight convoy, the worst accident Greece has ever had. known.
In the first journey between Athens and Kalambaka were on Monday morning the Minister of Transport, Giorgos Gerapetritis, the president of the company managing the network (OSE) as well as members of the Hellenic Train company responsible for freight and passenger transport for send a message aimed at reassuring passengers.
The station master on duty at the time of the accident, Vassilis Samaras, 59, was taken into custody. He had admitted his responsibility in the head-on collision between the two trains.
The inspector of station masters as well as two other station masters who had left Vassilis Samaras alone during his service were also charged.
Although the responsibility for the train disaster was initially attributed mainly to human error, the accident also highlighted delays by the State in modernizing train safety systems.
“These chronic failures cannot be rectified overnight, it takes time,” OSE director Panagiotis Terezakis told AFP.
“Our duty is to have a railway that meets all of our expectations, a modern railway that can develop and be among the best in Europe. It is an obligation of the state, but it is also a debt we owe to the victims of this tragic accident who perished so prematurely and unjustly,” Transport Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis told the media on Monday.
Additional safety measures have been taken since the accident: reduction in train speed, fewer journeys made during the day, two station masters and two mechanics are positioned at each station.
The Greek Minister of Transport also assured that “a huge effort is being made to ensure that all contracts relating to signaling and remote control are completed on time, so that by the end of September we have a completely safe and compliant with international passenger protection standards.
The Minister also stressed that “cooperation” with the French and German governments had been developed to modernize the Greek rail network.
Since March 22, intercity passenger trains have already been running between Athens and the capital’s international airport or the nearby town of Halkida.
A week later, freight trains linking Thriasio near Piraeus, a major commercial transit port, and Thessaloniki were also back in service.
This accident dealt a major blow to the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in power for four years, and which wants to renew its mandate during the general elections in Greece on May 21.
Having at first attributed the accident “mainly to human error”, Kyriakos Mitsotakis then made his mea culpa and recognized “chronic” failures in the railways.