OUR Greek train before the tragic accident Tempe invited us from his website to experience a unique travel experience for safe and fast travel. Safety aside, speed seems to be more of a banner ad than a reality, with one in four trains having some sort of delay in the last quarter.

The most important rail link in the country

Trains on the Athens-Thessaloniki route cover more than half of the country’s population as they connect the 2 most populous cities and also pass through many cities in central Greece such as Larisa and Lamia. But the most important message, which serves so much and has a long history of investments and projects to improve its infrastructure, still faces many “obstacles” in its proper operation, and rail routes are often on the other side of these difficulties.
Including Hellenic Train announcements for the last quarter for IC and ETR-ICE (Express) trains connecting Athens and Thessaloniki, the frequency of delays reaches 28% of the routes, with about 4 announcements of delays of more than ten minutes per day. However, the frequency of express trains and conventional trains is clearly different, with the latter having a three-digit number of announcements.

Delay time

The delays that do happen are not always that great. A significant number of them fluctuate within 10-20 minutes. But several times the situation quickly goes beyond acceptable limits. Delays of up to 2 hours on a route that normally takes 2 hours have occurred several times over the past few months. Especially in February, when due to bad weather Barbara, but not only, the average delay of regular, non-express trains exceeded 35 minutes. And here, of course, there is clearly a smaller difference between an express train and a regular train.

Problems in the past 12 months

On several occasions over the past 12 months, trains have had to be stopped due to fires close to infrastructure on the line, while on other occasions falling trees have caused power outages or even obstructed traffic.

Significant incidents in the past year: