Epirus claims the advent of the railway in the region

Epirus Region sends an official request for the train to reach the area. The request concerns the examination by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport of the maturation of a railway project that will connect Epirus with the national network of the country, thus reaching Ioannina and the port of Epirus, Igoumenitsa.

In the Regional Council, held on May 15, it was unanimously decided to send the above request in order to push the State to investigate the possibility of such a public investment with funding from the new programming period, i.e. NSRF 2021-2027. More particularly, the Region is calling for the construction of a new 147km railway line from Kalambaka to Igoumenitsa as this project is still environmentally licensed. In essence, we are talking about the completion of the so-called “Railway Egnatia”.

Kachrimanis (Epirus Governor): 110 years of promises – We will claim the advent of the railway

As the Regional Governor of Epirus, Mr. Alexandros Kachrimanis, told ypodomes.com, Epirus has a long history of announcements -of over a century- regarding the advent of the train. On July 17, 1911, the newspaper “Epirus” wrote about an announcement according to which railway would reach the town of Ioannina.

“From that point an on, every now and then, we talk about the arrival of the railway in the area but we never get to its implementation. There is no provision for this even now, but we, the people of Epirus, said that we will claim that the railway reaches Ioannina and Igoumenitsa”, he noted.

In fact, as Mr. Kachrimanis reveals, the Region, with its own resources, prepared a preliminary study for a new single-track railway line Igoumenitsa-Ioannina-Argyrokastro and from there an additional connection with a railway line from the town of Kozani.

“Let me remind you of the projects that started in the 1930s for the line to reach Kozani and never ended. Also during Mr. Vereli’s secretaryship, there was again a promise that was not kept”, emphasizes Mr. Kachrimanis, who even reveals that in the period 2005-2008 several studies were prepared but there was never a follow-up.