The Tempi Train Crash: More Than Just an Accident?
by Konstantinos Gkoumakis
The arrival of spring is supposed to signal a renewal, a cleansing. Yet, for the Greeks who would wake up on the morning of the 1st of March it would be just another realisation of the rotten political reality in which they live.
At 23:21 of February 28th, a head-on collision occurred between a passenger and a freight train travelling on the same track but in opposite directions, south of the Tempi Valley. The result? 57 dead, 85 injured. The question on everyone’s lips is how?
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Everything seemed to point to a human error, namely the misconduct of the station master who did not notify the train drivers of the danger lying ahead and of the imminent collision. This is only partly true, and the reality is far more difficult to grasp and admit.
First of all, we start by mentioning the obvious, that railways do not need to be dependent on humans alone to function. The Greek railway network has been immensely downgraded for decades, which has taken a toll on investments necessary for the functioning of the railway system. Thus, automation systems which allow for the remote immobilisation of a train in case of oncoming collisions, among other safety tools, are non-existent in Greek rail services.
Secondly, the signalling on the rails has become useless as trains can even pass when the light is red, leaving the handling of the navigation largely to communication between employees. Something that brings us to another unacceptable element: that there is no tracking system for the trains. If we can track our online shopping from warehouse to doorstep, why can a national rail service not track its own trains?
All this is sufficient to paint the picture of just how archaic the standards of the entire Greek railways system have been. Railway workers’ unions have repeatedly denounced the lack of maintenance, the chronic under-staffing and the non-implementation of modern security systems, warning of the possible dangers if no changes were to take place. 2,000 railway staff have been fired since 2010, resulting in a workforce which currently stands at around 750 employees, instead of 2,100. Similar worries had been expressed by the EU Railway Agency recently but failed to receive attention. Some are also blaming the privatisation which took place in 2017 when ‘TRAINOSE SA’ – now renamed as ‘Hellenic Train’ – was bought by ‘Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane’, the Italian state railways, within the context of the privatisation programme demanded by the EU creditors during the economic crisis.
Whilst there are clear human errors at play, the root cause cannot be ignored: clientelism. Suspicious is a small word to describe how the station master found himself alone on shift with only three months of training, when someone is supposed to require five years of experience to even be promoted to that position. How someone went from being a porter in the Ministry of Education, to a position of such importance, highlights one of the key problems in Greek society today.
It is no secret in Greece that the relations of patronage remain the backbone of the voting process. The reality is that favours are being asked in order to secure votes for a certain candidate. This can extend to entire families choosing a specific political party for life because of the advantages they gain from it. A considerable proportion of voters resist this practice in an attempt to isolate themselves where possible from national politics. However, political patronage remains prevalent in rural Greece.
It is evident that for the past governments, despite their official claims of alignment with the EU policies to reach climate neutrality by 2050, a green transition for the transport industry has not been a priority. The railway system has deteriorated as a result of this neglect. In fact, it is worth mentioning that according to Eurostat, in 2021 10,029 passengers used the Greek railways, while in Czechia – a country with a similar population – there were 135,083 passengers. In Austria, which has a population of 8.9 million compared to Greece’s 10.6 million, this number reached 189.006. The line linking Athens to Thessaloniki is by far the most important one, and yet it is the one on which this tragedy took place.
Moreover, one has to take into account the sheer number of oil companies that have lobbied in favour of the highway construction in Greece. Truly, over the past few years it has been impressive how many new highways have been developed despite the restricted public finances. And one can assume that the news of the collision will only lead to further marginalisation of rail transport instead of solving its deeply rooted problems so that it finally gets a predominant place in society.
One of the most devastating consequences of the accident is that the biggest number of those who lost their lives were young people and students returning from the Greek Orthodox Lent holidays to their universities and families.
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CNN Greece / Λευτέρης Παρτσάλης
As the nation grapples with this tragedy, curious elements related to compensation are surfacing. The European Regulation of 1371/2007 concerns the rights of passengers to compensation following an abnormal event, from accidents to delays. The Greek government, however, is proven to have abused this regulation in order to provide exemptions, doing so for TRAINOSE and ‘Hellenic Train’, i.e. the only providers of railway transportation. If there was any proof needed to show the dire reality of the Greek railways and the corruption within, this was it. The government has claimed that ‘Hellenic Train’ is only involved in transportation itself and the trains, while the operation of the infrastructure is being overseen by the state-owned OSE (Hellenic Railways Organization), so an exemption is acceptable. If not for this exemption, it is likely that the former would ask for compensation from the latter due to the problematic privatisation process. The families of victims and those injured were facing the prospect of having their right to compensation denied, on the basis of a legal manoeuvre. Only after 5 days did ‘Hellenic Train’ agree to provide compensation to those affected by the crash.
Enough is enough, proclaimed everyone, especially the young people who have been increasingly worried of the state they are growing up in. This was the motive for a peaceful youth-led demonstration, three days after the accident, that was met by tear gas from police.
If only this were the only time such an unnecessary tragedy has occurred due to a lack of governmental measures. Many citizens in Greece remember the fire of Mati on the east coast of Attica, in July 2018, which took the lives of 103 people; heavy flooding in Western Attica in 2017 which killed 24; and the shipwreck of Express Samina in 2000 which reached a death toll of 81. Despite multiple tragedies, made worse by human error and government mismanagement, steps have not been taken to ensure that human errors do not contribute to further disasters.
Whilst the people of Greece recovered in the days following the Tempi tragedy, politicians focused on ensuring their political survival. Despite the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport announcing his resignation the day after the tragedy, he followed this by announcing his candidacy for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The very same person who was proudly arguing one week earlier in a parliamentary debate that the rail transports in Greece had become extremely safe, demanding from his political opponents to take back their ‘unjustified’ verbal attacks. And while other political parties are happy to take advantage of situations that paint their opponents in a bad light, the citizens have not forgotten that the lack of safety measures on the rail network has been a long-existing problem, only prolonged by each of the past governments.
We are all tired. Of seeing no one actually accepting their share of responsibility. Of being witnesses to this constant political game of impressions and empty words for the sake of good polls. And the people in power are not the only ones showing a complete lack of morals and empathy. Many journalists known for being aligned to the government have openly expressed disgusting views on prime time television, stating that as we had been aided by previous national tragedies, this one would not be an exception. That these sacrifices will be for the greater good and they will push these topics to the top of the political agenda.
Have we truly come to live in a time when politicians think they have the right to look a parent who lost their children in the eye and tell them that accidental deaths – as Iphigenia’s sacrifice – are just one normal stage leading to the improvement of the country’s infrastructure? Is this how things work here? Is it possible that death may await us with the purchase of a train ticket?
Political corruption is not something that we can ignore and deal with as yet another normal facet of everyday life. It is not. It is up to the citizens to demand a healthier political environment by realising what they truly want from their government and setting their priorities.
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It is time that the Greeks add the word ‘consequences’ to their vocabulary and see the bigger picture. Because we are not only talking about, as the Greek Prime Minister put it in his address to the people, a “tragic human error.” The human error lies within our own choice of continuing to support the rise to power of immoral politicians. Because, as many placards in the demonstrations mention: ‘It was not an accident. It was a CRIME!’
Konstantinos is a student of International, European and Area Studies in Athens. His passions include politics and learning languages - apart from his native Greek, he speaks English, French, German, and is learning Russian. He is constantly looking for ways to give back to society as an active citizen.