Historic day tomorrow for Greek Railways as first electric train sets off on long-distance northbound itinerary

After 4 months of operation and multiple safety checks, tomorrow, Wednesday, June 6th, the maiden itinerary will be carried out by electric train on Piraeus-Lianokladi railway section. This is going to be a historic moment for the country’s railway events as the 210-km long section, which has been under upgrading for about 3 decades, has completed its major construction works making the modern, fast and environmentally friendly electric train available for the passengers.

This first itinerary has been organized in the context of Mathieu Grosch’s, Coordinator of the East / Med Corridor of TEN-T (Coordinator of East / East Mediterranean of Trans-European Rail Networks) visit, who, along with the leadership of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, OSE, ERGOSE, TRAINOSE and EESSTY, will be one of the first passengers.

Tomorrow’s route will also mark the beginning of the end of the diesel-powered train today with the electric. When TRAINOSE management decides it, electric trains will be starting from Athens all the way to Lianokladi. There, the engine will be changed to diesel-powered until Paleofarsallos, to switch again to electric-powered again until Thessaloniki.

By the end of the year, the project’s last section from Lianokladi to Domokos (52-km long) will be completed along with all necessary safety checks, electrification works, signaling systems’ installation, alllowing the corridor to be finally released to full operation by OSE.

If everything goes as planned Athens-Thessaloniki time distance, will drop to about 4 hours. With the completion of ECTS systems on the railway corridor, journey time will be further reduced to 3 hours and 20 minutes, probably around late 2019.

Nikos Karagiannis-ypodomes.com

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