Thessalian railways

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Two meter-gauge railcars on three-rail tracks in Volos, 1995

The Thessalian Railways (Sidirodromi Thessalias) were a private Greek railway company. They built and operated a narrow-gauge railway network starting from Volos in Thessaly . Two meter-gauge lines originally led to Larisa and Kalambaka , the Pelion Railway with a gauge of 600 mm led to Milies on the Pelion peninsula .

history

Museum railcars at Aerinion

After the independence of Thessaly from the Ottoman Empire in 1881, the development of the now Greek province should be pushed ahead. For this purpose the Thessalian Railways were founded on October 25th, 1882 with French capital. In September 1883 the construction of the line from Volos, the most important port city of Thessaly, to the then provincial capital Larisa began, on April 21, 1884 this 61 km long line was completed. The second route branched off in Velestino, 19 km west of Volos. It was 142 km long and opened in five stages:

  • Velestino – Farsala, November 13, 1884
  • Fartsala – Sofades, June 30, 1885
  • Sofades – Karditsa, October 3, 1885
  • Karditsa – Drossero, March 9, 1886
  • Drossero – Kalambaka, June 16, 1886

Narrow-gauge operation

Kalambaka station with the rocks of Meteora , before the conversion to standard gauge
Meter gauge monument locomotive in Larissa

Both lines were built as narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of 1000 mm. The locomotives were mainly procured from the Tubize locomotive factory in Belgium. In 1895 and 1903 the network of the Thessalian narrow-gauge railways was supplemented by the Pelionbahn, which is 600 mm wide . With the opening of the railway line from Athens to Larisa, today part of the main line from Athens to Thessaloniki , the Thessalian narrow-gauge railways lost their transport monopoly in the region. At the intersection of the line to Kalambaka with the main line, a short junction was built from the direction of Volos to a hub station, which was given the name Paleofarsalos far away from significant settlements . A standard gauge track branched off the main line in the direction of Volos, where a reloading station for goods traffic was created at Enotiki station of the narrow-gauge railway.

After the First World War , the Greek state planned to set up several new rail connections, including a standard-gauge line from Kalambaka via Kozani to Veroia and thus also to convert the line from Volos to Kalambaka to standard-gauge. The relevant resolutions were passed in 1927, and from 1928 work began on the construction of the new line from Kalambaka. But just one year later it was clear that the project would exceed the estimated costs many times over. In 1932 the construction work was canceled and has not been started to this day. By this time, several bridges, tunnels and train stations had been completed, and tracks had never been laid on the 180 km long route. In 1954 Kozani received a standard-gauge railway connection from the north from the Thessaloniki - Florina line.

To compensate for the vehicle losses left by the Second World War and the Greek Civil War , the Thessalian Railways procured some used steam locomotives from the Swiss Brünig Railway and YSteC G 4/4 4, as well as from 1951 six new oil-fired steam locomotives from Jung . Also from 1951 a total of 14 diesel multiple units from Breda in Italy followed.

In 1955 the Thessalian Railways were nationalized and incorporated into the State Railroad Company SEK (Sidirodromoi Ellinikou Kratos), a forerunner of today's OSE . By 1960, the Larisa - Velestino line was converted to the standard gauge, and a completely new standard gauge line was built between Velestino and Volos, which was laid somewhat apart from the remaining narrow-gauge line. In Volos, the track systems were partially converted to three- rail tracks for vehicles of both gauges. In addition, the starting point of the Pelion Railway, Volos had now become a station for trains with three different gauges. The connection to the port was converted into a four-rail track for three gauges. Until around 1980, freight trains and occasionally special trains for railway enthusiasts were still run with steam locomotives. Until the purchase of five new MAN railcars in the early 1990s, old, still usable vehicles from the Peloponnese narrow-gauge railways kept coming to Thessaly. In these cases, however, the pulling and pushing devices had to be rebuilt, as the vehicles of the Thessalian narrow-gauge railway were equipped with side buffers comparable to Tunisian meter-gauge vehicles. The meter-gauge MAN regional railcars of the later 6521 series were finally supplied by the manufacturer with mounts for buffers and couplings according to the Thessalian and Peloponnisos standards.

Re-gauging on standard lane

Kalambaka station after re-gauging, 2005

After the Larisa – Volos line had been re-gauged in 1960, the modernization of the Thessalonian narrow-gauge railways initially came to a standstill. From the 1980s onwards, re-gauging of the remaining meter-gauge route with financial support from the EU was under discussion again. After minor preparatory work, all traffic between Volos and Kalambaka was discontinued in 1998 and the tracks in the Paleofarsalos – Kalambaka section were dismantled as preparatory work, since for financial reasons only this section should now be re-gauge. It was not planned to use the railway as a feed route for the renovation work. The meter-gauge line between Volos and Paleofarsalos was completely discontinued, and the modern railcars were brought to the Peloponnese.

In April 2000, the first converted section from Paleofarsalos to Karditsa was put into operation. Delayed by civil protests, mainly concerning the location of level crossings in Trikala, the rest of the route to Kalambaka followed in January 2001. With the gauge change it was now possible to run direct trains to Athens and Thessaloniki, some direct connections from Kalambaka to Volos were offered in a detour via Larisa. In addition to increasing the maximum line speed by re-routing narrow curves, the shortening of travel times was also achieved by closing smaller train stations and stations, but the very staff-intensive operation of the remaining train stations remained largely unchanged.

From 2001 the meter gauge tracks in the Volos train station were removed. Some historical vehicles were brought to Velestino, where railway enthusiasts occasionally organize special trips with a diesel railcar on the remaining narrow-gauge tracks in the direction of Paleofarsalos.

When operations on most of the Greek branch lines were discontinued in February 2011, all regional trains between Paleofarsalos and Kalambaka were canceled. Since then, there has only been one daily pair of trains to and from Thessaloniki and Athens.

swell

  1. Alexandros C. Gregoriou The Kalambaka - Kozani - Veroia railway 1928 - 1932 (copy in the Internet Archive) ( Memento from April 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  2. Dimitrios Koffas By train in Thessaly

literature

  • Hans-Bernhard Schönborn: Narrow Gauge Railways in Greece , Edition Ergasias, 1997, ISBN 3-909221-32-7
  • Peter Wegenstein (Ed.): Bahn im Bild. Volume 107, The Railways of Greece , Verlag Peter Pospischil, Vienna 1986

Web links