After a serious train accident, the trains are running again

class=”sc-3778e872-0 gWjAEa”>

More than three weeks after the serious train accident in which 57 people died, trains were running again on the Greek railways on Wednesday morning. Initially, only freight trains and several regional trains ran in the Athens area, the port city of Patras and Thessaloniki, as announced by the Ministry of Transport. The suburban railway linking Athens to the capital’s airport was also running again, as state television showed.

In an interview with the TV channel Alpha, conservative government leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized again on Tuesday evening for the accident and promised to modernize the ailing Greek railway line. He will do everything possible to ensure that the causes of the accident are not covered up, he added.

Head-on collision of two trains

The government is very careful about restarting the railway. The trains travel slowly on the routes because modern safety and control systems have not or hardly worked. The first Intercity on the route between Athens and Thessaloniki – on which the accident also happened – should not run until April 1.

Greek railway workers went on strike after the worst train accident in the country’s history. They, like thousands of demonstrators who have been demonstrating almost daily since then, demand an extensive investigation into the causes of the accident.

A station master in the city of Larisa had sent the passenger train on the wrong track. This was followed by a head-on collision with a freight train. However, the human error would have had no consequences had the electronics worked. The ongoing investigations reveal details about the catastrophic state of Greece’s railways almost every day. (SDA)

Source: Blick