Report: Station master warned of head-on train collision 17 minutes before horrific crash

A station master who allegedly caused a deadly train collision in north-central Greece late Tuesday night, by making a catastrophic error, was reportedly warned of two trains on the same line but headed towards each other 17 minutes before the horrific crash.

The official death toll from the worst rail accident in Greece’s history climbed to 57 on Thursday, although the number of still missing passengers indicates that more bodies remain to be recovered from within the charred wreckage of the north-bound passenger train. The collision took place at the Evangelismos site, at the southern mouth of the Tempi Valley Gorge.
According to a report aired by the Athens-based Star channel on Thursday evening’s prime-time newscast, another station master, at the Neon Poron station, the first stop north of the Larissa station and only a few kilometers from the accident site, reportedly told his colleague that a south-bound freight train was heading straight for the north-bound passenger train.

The communication between the two station masters, according to the same media report, took place at 23.04 local time (21.04 GMT), 17 minutes before the crash.

According to the newscast, in fact, the communication has been recorded.

The Larissa station master will appear before a prosecutor in the same city on Saturday, with felony counts expected to be filed against him. He currently remains in remand.

The 59-year-old man is an employee of the state-run railway system, OSE, and in preliminary statements to authorities on Wednesday reportedly admitted that he mistakenly switched the north-bound passenger train into the path of the oncoming freight train.

Nevertheless, intense media scrutiny in the country over the past two days has also focused on why consecutive governments and state railways administrations haven’t installed an electronic – and subsequently digital – monitoring, signaling, communication and automated braking system along all tracks and trains – a project that dates back to even before the 2004 Olympic Games of Athens.

Moreover, Greece’s rail network is deemed as one of the smallest and antiquated in the European Union.