More than two weeks after the fatal collision between two trains in Greece, the competent authorities are making their first findings. Greece’s railways regulator, RAS, reports “serious” safety shortcomings in the management of the railway network, particularly in the “inadequate” training of employees of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), a he announced Friday, March 17.
This independent authority stressed that, according to its first conclusions, “the training of staff by the OSE [which manages the rail network] was incomplete and therefore inadequate”, in particular that of the station masters. After investigating the “training of traffic sector personnel of which the station master involved in the accident was a part”, the dispatcher found that it “could not be proven” that he had completed ” his theoretical and practical training”.
An inexperienced station master
The station manager of Larissa, a town close to the deadly accident which killed fifty-seven people, is in pre-trial detention after admitting his responsibility in the facts on the evening of February 28. It was this 59-year-old man, presented as inexperienced by the Greek authorities, who allegedly made the mistake of letting a passenger train and a freight convoy run on the same track for several kilometers without reacting, causing a head-on collision between both trains. He was charged five days after the accident while three other OSE employees are also being prosecuted.
The RAS decided “unanimously to take urgent action due to serious indications of violation of railway law, which poses a serious threat to public safety”, it said in a statement. .
In addition to the responsibility of this station master, the dilapidated state of the rail network and the delays in the modernization of signaling and safety systems have been put forward to explain this rail disaster which has raised a wave of indignation in Greece. More than 25,000 people gathered in Athens on Thursday, where clashes broke out between police and protesters.