“When we got to the place, we slowed down, and at that moment I felt like I was inside the train where it happened. accident. I tried to put myself in the place of my colleagues, children who were train drivers. What could they see, what could they think. The emotional charge was strong, I will not hide from you that I cried. I made my cross and continued the route.

Last Thursday evening the train driver Alexandros Jordanides, took a train from the Thessaloniki Freight Station to Lianoklady, near Lamia. A month had passed since the railway tragedy of February 28, and all the previous time he and his other colleagues were mentally preparing for the day when they would board the train again. However, nothing prepared him for the moment when he Pace. Alexander, like everyone who was with him at that moment on the merchant train, felt an unbearable heaviness and the same strong excitement.

“All the way we talked about what could have happened on the night of the accident, but when we got to the place, there was a long silence in the cell.. We saw a small chapel that was set up as a memorial and some candles and flowers left there. We all, I think, thought and felt the same thing,” a 32-year-old train driver, who has been working for K for the past five years, tells K. Greek train. He himself knew very well the train drivers who died in a railway accident. “I think that when we pass through Tempi – no matter how much time passes – our thoughts will “travel” to lost people and each time we will feel within ourselves the same numbness and the same sigh.”

Alexander laid out a second commercial route a day after the railroad was restarted. With him in the booth were another train driver, a company instructor, and an OSE employee with a GSMR device. as a “navigator” to provide radio communications inside the tunnels.

“It was a clear demand from the drivers to the management of the ECO that the radio coverage of the line was in full. With the previous system, this coverage could not be provided, so now we will have an OSE employee with a GSMR mobile device with us on every route so that we can communicate with the stations. This will apply to all trains, commercial and passenger, that pass through the Tempe and Platamonas tunnels until the GSMR system is certified and we can use it as drivers,” Alexandros Iordanidis explained to K.

Meeting in Lianoklady

A commercial train from Thessaloniki arrived at Lianoklady station around 01:45 am. A few minutes earlier, a corresponding train from Athens had arrived at the same station. In accordance with new safety regulations and until deemed necessary, commercial line routes “Athens – Thessaloniki”now they will meet in Lianoklady, where the drivers, after driving half the route, they exchange trains and they will return to their base, which, say the machinists, contributes to their psychology. Thus, it additionally provides trains do not meet at any “open” route pointand at the central station, where there is a stationmaster and OSE staff.

“Trains must meet at an active station so that the lines are free, whether single or two-way traffic,” emphasizes Andreas Athanasopoulos. This is the train driver who was the first to make a commercial route from Athens to Lianoklady on the evening of March 29, when the decision was made to resume commercial flights. The train departed, as planned, at 22.20 from Larisa station.

“When I opened the door and got into the car, I felt numb.. But, I’m a professional, I had to concentrate and do my job, which I love and learned to do properly,” says Andreas, 32, who has been a train driver for five years. On this first route, he and the second driver were accompanied by two company instructors. “Due to special circumstances, these people were with us for psychological support as well as practical reasons. They checked for faults in the infrastructure, making sure the ventilation or lighting inside the tunnels was working properly,” he says.

“Without written assurances, I would not have boarded the train”

Initial planning for the gradual restart of the railroad “had” several delays. Written assurances were required from OSE to the machinists’ union to get the trains back on track and the workers on them. And although commercial routes were launched last Wednesday, Today, Monday, passenger traffic begins.

“Everything cannot change overnight. To begin with, we asked to solve elementary security issues, so that there would be communication inside the tunnels, so that there would be emergency exits. Traffic lights, if they have not been made for 15 years, cannot be made in a few days. However, there should not be single lines, and the routes, at least at first, should be sparse, ”explains“ K ”Andreas Athanasopoulos.

“After many meetings that we, as train drivers, have been involved in during this time, we have come to an agreement that, out of respect for the people who died at Tempe, but also with the safety of the passengers and our own as a top priority, the main security systems should be activated before before we get on the trains. Without written assurances, I would not have started,” he concludes.