Its Head of Transparency SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance, Yannis Ragousisafter his visit to Larissa and his meeting with workers and station mastersmade the following statement to the press representatives:

“We continue every day the effort to fulfill our duty. In this particular case, let’s do everything in our power so that the whole truth comes to light. And this as the minimum tribute to all the victims of this unimaginable tragedy that has shocked the whole of Greece.

Today, we had the opportunity to talk with acting stationmasters, conversations from which, in my opinion, a very serious new fact emerged, about which we will inform competently and make detailed and official statements and which will certainly shed more light who are ultimately responsible and where do they belong for this great national tragedy.

The new data has to do with remote control, which, as the current station masters told us, existed and operated at the Larissa station until the summer of 2019, where a fire broke out at the Zachareos station and which this fire resulted from then terminate the remote control operation.

At that time the remote control was troubled by various incidents of theft along the route. But there was remote control and it enabled the Larissa station to “see” at a very long distance just before Platy of Imathia for about 110 kilometers.

Which means that while the remote control system was in operation, i.e. until the summer of 2019, the Larissa station was not “blind”, but could monitor the course and evolution of the trains.

At the same time, it is very important that, as we were informed, the operation of remote control from 2004 to 2019 resulted in the presence of the area where the respective station master is located when the trains come and go, and the existence and operation of the remote control center with remote control station master.

So, for the duration as explained to us of the entire 24 hours each day, we had two station masters. A conventional station master and a second, alongside the first station master, the remote control station master.

This stopped, as we were informed, in July 2019.

So a reasonable question arises, how is it possible that with a fire at the Zaharis station from the summer of 2019 the damage was not repaired as soon as possible, and to arrive today, from the summer of 2019 onwards the Larissa station operates without remote control and with one stationmaster instead of two?

This is very serious news. We are not prosecutors, nor do we do an investigation, but it is very important to clarify the case»