Greece is a country where ever since the financial turmoil of recent years
all railroad infrastructure as well as the trains are in a sorry state of major disrepair. The Greek railroads
used to employ by far too many workers and when money ran out and more could not anymore be loaned, huge crowds of railroaders
were fired. As an end result more or less everything was actively broken if not stolen. Kilometres of copper wire from
electrified lines were stolen, huge amounts of rolling stock were actively broken or just left to rot, almost all cleaning
and repairing of trains and stations alike was stopped, everything was covered by disgusting graffiti and of course the end
result was a full chaos. Even now, years after
the sharpest peak of the riots, not many people want to ride a train as they are smudged by graffiti, unreliable, filthy and
often in a disgusting shape. The state railways OSE went practically bankrupt. Train operations were continued under the name
of TrainOSE, which technically is a private company, now bought by the Italian state railways FS. The Italians were the only
ones who wanted to pay even a single euro for the mess. TrainOSE does not own the trains and tracks it uses, but rents them from
the still state owned OSE.
This here is a modern German train, a five coach German Siemens Desiro. 20 of them were delivered to Greece and 19 are still
- at least in theory - in use. They are from the year 2006. Whereas the Desiros of Germany are two coach diesel trains, the
Greek Desiros are five coach electric multiple units intended mainly for suburban traffic around Athens and Thessaloniki.
This one was photographed at Thessaloniki station 29.11.2015 by Ilkka Siissalo.
FUNET railway pictures archive - Greece
Picture categories
- Diesel multiple units
- Diesel locomotives
- Electric locomotives and multiple units
- Passenger coaches and cargo wagons
- Miscellaneous railways related pictures
It is often said that Greece is a country with a brilliant history. This is true for its railways too, the problem is today and the
future and we can only hope for better times for them. It is such a shame to see how they wasted huge sums of money and then broke
down and left to rot everything
This is a pre WW II German express train coach, converted during the war time into a hospital train to evacuate wounded German
soldiers and then left behind as the Nazi German army had to retreat from Eastern Europe. Here it rusts now at a siding at Thessaloniki
station in eastern Greece. Picture by Ilkka Siissalo 29.11.2015.
The same pre war German coach, seen from another side. Picture 29.11.2015 by Ilkka Siissalo.