The rejection of the request to update the safety approval of the Hellenic Railways Organization regarding specific sections of the railway line, which have been damaged by the extreme weather phenomena DANIEL and ELIAS, was rejected by a decision of the Plenary Assembly of the Railway Regulatory Authority (RAS).

In particular, as recorded in the decision of the Plenary, in the railway sections affected by the two disasters, there were significant changes due to the serious damage caused to the infrastructure subsystems, trackside control-control and signaling.

Specifically, according to the Authority’s announcement, the inactive sections that the RAS Plenary decided to remove from the infrastructure manager’s updated security approval are the following:

First: The sections affected by the DANIEL and ELIAS theomenies of the railway infrastructure “Larissa – Volos”, “Paleofarsalos – Kalambaka” and the ascending branch “‘Agios Stefanos X. – Domokos – Paleofarsalos – Mezourlos”

Second: The section of the railway infrastructure “Edessa – Florina”, which is inactive due to communication problems. Finally, in the decision of the Plenary of the Railway Regulatory Authority it is underlined, “that in the affected section “‘Agios Stefanos X. – Domokos – Palaiofarsalos – Mezourlos” in which traffic is carried out on a single line (downhill), while the uphill line is not working, it is required the submission of a detailed action plan by the infrastructure manager to RAS, in order to add detailed and documented, in accordance with EU regulation 1078/2012, the existing and any required additional measures taken by the infrastructure manager, for the safe operation of traffic in the due to the infrastructure section, until the final restoration of the infrastructure in both branches as well as the functioning of the signaling”.

OSE’s response

It is recalled that with yesterday’s announcement, the OSE, referring to letter 2252/20-6-2024 of RAS, “on the subject of the Update of the Security Approval of the Infrastructure Manager and the publicity that some tried to impose on a purely formal procedure concerning the removal from the Certificate, of specific inactive parts of the railway infrastructure damaged by the DANIEL disaster”, points out the following:

1. The late interest of opposition circles in highlighting as a major security issue a formal procedure that both OSE and RAS were obliged to implement according to European regulations is questionable.

2. The rational citizen wonders if it was ever possible for the OSE and the RAS to still include in the active railway network sections damaged by a natural disaster, which have already been included in a definitive rehabilitation program.

So we wonder, from the decision of RAS, which parts of the network are closed? Could it be that the OSE, given the conditions of the infrastructure and primarily based on safety in accordance with European regulations, has not been operating for months?