The conversation lasted several seconds. Taking away the privacy of cell phone calls will reveal if this was the last conversation of train driver Giorgos Koutsumbas before the accident. But “K” confirmed that after the fateful train 62 left the station of Larisa, Kutsubas contacted a young colleague, also a train driver, of another company that currently has no routes and whose employees manage commercial routes via mobile phone. in TRAINOSE to gain experience. .

– Come on, can you hear me? Where are you?” Kutsoubas shouted into his cell phone. Either he remembered that a particular colleague was driving a certain night route (they had done it together in the past), or he saw his name on the schedule. had just passed New Poros and was heading for Athens.

“Mastro-Giorgos, after all, we don’t demolish him,” he replied. At the last moment, together with his colleague, they changed shifts with two other colleagues and were still in Thessaloniki. They downloaded the next and last commercial. In this short phone call, the young train driver did not realize that Koutsoubas was in danger. In his voice, as he later conveyed to his interlocutors, there was tension, but not panic.

“Koutsoubas himself must not have realized what exactly happened, because otherwise he would have stopped the train and contacted others. Obviously, he could not imagine that the stationmaster had made such a tragic mistake. Since he was downhill earlier and knew the routes, he probably wanted to confirm that there was no one else in his queue,” said a colleague who knows how experienced he is in “K”.

On the way to Larissa, he had to leave the climb and enter the descent, because in Paleofarsalos a cable was cut on the climb. That’s why there were delays that day. A little later than 11 at night, having arrived in Larissa, he again went up, stopped at the pier and disembarked people. “We are ready,” shouted two conductors at the end of the train. The doors closed, and then Kutsubas received a signal from the head of the station to leave freely. “You’re going to the New Resources entrance,” she can be heard telling him over the radio.

A few minutes earlier, Eleni Z., stationmaster at Nea Pori (the next station after Larissa to Thessaloniki), was chasing a commercial train from Thessaloniki downhill. Like the head of the station Larisa, she worked for some time. Young in age, the daughter of a stationmaster, she grew up on the railroad and showed consistency and professionalism from day one. She, too, was alone that evening shift, although the New Resources station was not so busy, there were mostly transits. After she informed the stationmaster that she had “kicked out the commercial”, he called her and confirmed that 62 had also just left.

“Koutsobas himself must not have understood what exactly happened, because otherwise he would have stopped the train,” says his colleague.

K reports that after the fatal course of the passenger train began, Kutsubas contacted the stationmaster at least three times to confirm the route. These reports were made by radiotelephone and may not be the only ones that have yet to be discovered.

From everything it is clear that the stationmaster did not even mark the route, believing that the already marked route was correct and that the 62nd would continue straight uphill.

When Koutsoubas reaches the point where the key was forgotten and returns the train to the descent, he again attempts to contact the stationmaster. Is Larisa listening? he is asking. The stationmaster does not answer at first. The driver shouts again, louder this time: “Larisa is listening?” Then the stationmaster answers. He repeats the telegram number and how he freely passes the red light (which doesn’t work) and walks to the New Resources entrance.

More time passes and Koutsoubas asks him again about the route. There, the head of the station, according to the person who overheard the conversation, answered him in a slightly annoyed tone: “After I told you, you can go freely until the traffic light entrance to Nei Poros.” Koutsoubas may have asked for other clarifications, but then he decides to call a young fellow train driver to find out exactly where the store is.

As soon as a collision occurs in Tempi, the driver of a commuter train waiting to depart from Larissa to Thessaloniki informs the stationmaster and traffic controller in Athens that he has no strength. An agreement was reached and, according to “K”, at 23.28 the head of the station in Larisa contacts him and asks if the electricity has come, “because in two or three minutes 62 is going to Poros and I will kick you out.” He still has no idea that the electrical problem is the result of a collision that just happened.

In the next few minutes, the fire department informs the stationmaster that Evangelismos has derailed from the rails and caught fire. Eleni has the same information at the station in Neios Poros, who frightenedly calls him and asks for an explanation. He informs her that there must have been an “accident”. “I don’t know. Whatever I tell you, Helen, I’ll lie to you. Now about how this train came and went downhill. I don’t know. Shut up.” Another train driver, who has arrived on the local route from Paleofarsalos, shouts at him in a panic and insistently asks which train has derailed. But he doesn’t get an answer. The head of the Larisa station now understood the scale of the tragedy.