The Municipality of Ilida mourns one of its own people who is unfortunately on the long list of missing persons of the national tragedy with the two trains in Tempe that killed dozens of our young fellow citizens.
The unfortunate man from Amaliada worked as a train driver for the Hellenic Train company and in recent years lived in Thessaloniki.

Her world Amaliada froze upon hearing the tragic news about the 59-year-old, a hard-working man with vast experience as a train driver. An excellent family man, father of three daughters, he started from OSE in our prefecture and left after years due to the situation created in him, finding a position in the Hellenic Train force, moving in recent years to Thessaloniki.

The daughter is shocking

Acquaintances and friends leave their own farewell message on the unfortunate man’s Facebook wall, unable to believe the tragedy of Tempe.

People who had lived with him at times, people with whom he had frequent contact, “bend” at the idea of ​​the possible loss of their friend.

However, the message that breaks hearts is that of the daughter, where with just two words she says her own goodbye to her beloved father. “My daddy” was her post on the 59-year-old’s wall, a message showing the heartache of his possible loss.

“Have a nice trip George”

The people of the Friends of the Railways Association also send their own message to the missing train driver, who stated in their statement: “25/3/2016. Excursion of SFS Pyrgos – Kalamata – Kyparissia. Driver was the unfortunate Giorgos Koutsoumbas. Have a good trip, George.”

His relationship with the Vice President of the Ilida Trade Association

A person closely related to the family of the missing Giorgos is the 2nd Vice-President of the Ilidas Andriani – Diana Varnava Trade Association, who is linked to piggy banks since her little daughter was baptized by the Amaliadian train driver.

“They haven’t found any trace of him yet”

She herself has been experiencing moments of anxiety ever since the accident happened and it became known that her best man was on one of the two trains. With a phone in hand, he is constantly trying to hear from his family about any new information. “According to the information I have so far, they haven’t found any trace of him yet. He was a train driver and was in the first carriage.

He is on the missing persons list, his older daughter has provided DNA and they will try to use it to cross match any evidence they find in the wreckage to find out if he is dead or missing. However, they do not give much hope that he is alive”, he specifically stated.

He didn’t forget Amaliada…

Afterwards, Mrs. Varnava spoke about his life in Thessaloniki in recent years with his family and his constant itineraries from Thessaloniki to Amaliada.

“He had moved to Thessaloniki when the trains were closed to us and he was going to retire from there. His little daughter was going to teach panhellenic and he wanted to be with her until she finished school and then he would come down. He lived near the 4th Primary School in Amaliada and came very often.

His two daughters were studying in Thessaloniki, they had finished their school and had come downstairs, with him waiting for his little daughter to enter the school, finish and return back. In fact, he went back and forth between Thessaloniki and Amaliada every two weeks”

“Systems should be automated”

Among other things, the vice-president of the Trade Association spoke of his competitive spirit since he had managed to overcome many health problems during this time, while she considers that such actions are criminal.

In particular, he argued: “The man had health problems in the past and had managed to overcome them. He had struggled to lose weight and be healthy. It’s what they say that “he who is about to drown, never dies”. He was a good man, with an open heart and it is a shame to lose such people. He was a fighter having overcome all the problems of the past and he probably lost his life in this accident, from human errors which in the time we live in are inadmissible and characterized as criminal actions. These systems should be automated.”

“I wish a miracle would happen and everything would turn around”

In closing, she wanted to send her own message to the family of the train driver and wished for a miracle to happen and everything to turn around for all the families.

“Condolences to his family. Let justice be served! It’s a shame to lose such people. Hope always dies last and I wish there was a miracle and everything would turn around, not just for him but for all the other missing people. It is such a tragic fact that there are no words to describe the pain that all families are going through at this time”, he concluded.

“We hurt for our colleague…”

An experienced train driver, who had served for many years in the place where he came from and grew up, is the missing man, Giorgos Koutsoumbas, from Amaliada, who on the fateful night of last Tuesday, was on the passenger train running the Athens-Thessaloniki route and in height of Tempe, collided head-on with a commercial train headed for Athens. This is the biggest fatal accident since 1968 that the Greek railway has known, with the Larissa Station Master reportedly accepting his mistake.

In his statements to the newspaper Patris, the Station Master of Pyrgos for 27 years, Sakis Giannopoulos, talks about a tragic mistake, which could have been avoided if in the Greece of 2023 “remote control” worked, especially on the Athens-Thessaloniki section, where the traffic is heavy.

The most terrifying accident

As Mr. Yiannopoulos revealed, this is the biggest railway accident that has happened in the country. “Something this big has never happened before, except in 1968 in Derveni with 32-38 dead, I don’t remember exactly. And in 1972 also a head-on collision. What happened yesterday was the most terrifying,” said Mr. Yiannopoulos.

“Why are we talking about 2023 now”, he continued “We are not talking about 1968, about 1972 when the conditions were different, the technology was much further behind. In OSE since 2000 there had to be remote control. In the Athens-Thessaloniki section where the heavy traffic is, where there are hundreds of trains every day, thousands of people are transported, thousands of tons of goods are transported and yet they have not done remote control. So they haven’t found a way to avoid human error.”

“Don’t make the mistake, because there is no apology afterwards”

“This has been our issue all these years”, emphasized Mr. Yiannopoulos. “Make no mistake. Because then there is no apology. There is disaster. Unfortunately, instead of looking to fix the railway as it is all over the world, here they looked to sell it off, to privatize it,” he noted.

“An extraordinary man”

Regarding his missing colleague, Giorgos Koutsoumbas, Mr. Giannopoulos emphasized that: “We were here together all these 27 years that I was a station master, we were here together, he did the Pyrgos – Athens routes, the local routes. An excellent child, a quiet man, a family man, he had created a very good family, I have spoken to dozens of colleagues on the phone since the morning we learned of the incident and we are all really hurting. He was an experienced train driver, a very good employee, formal, consistent, a happy person and the only thing that could be heard in the company was his laughter.”

“Lots of human error”

For his part, the general secretary of the Railway Engineers, Christos Economou, spoke to the newspaper. Patris, about the tragic accident, revealing that “there has been a lot of human error and not one human error, with accompanying errors or damage to the electronic systems as well.”

“They practiced”

In fact, he mentioned that the missing train driver, on the fateful night, was, according to the information so far, in the train driver’s room having with him four other young train drivers who were doing their practical training.

“The train driver from Ilia, with whom I have worked for many years while he was in the Prefecture, at that time was in the train driver’s room as far as I know and he had four new fellow train drivers with him who were doing an internship. He was an experienced train driver, responsible in his work, with a sense of humor. It was the bad moment, I don’t like to say that word”, pointed out Mr. Economou.