page_title: Rail transport in Greece
section_title: The beginnings (1868–1919)
hierarchical_section_title: Rail transport in Greece / History / The beginnings (1868–1919)
caption_attribution_description: English: Lamia train station Ελληνικά: Ο σιδηροδρομικός σταθμός της Λαμίας, δεξιά ο επιβατηγός και αριστερά ο εμπορικός, σε επιστολικό δελτάριο των αρχών του 20ου αι.
context_page_description: Rail transport in Greece has a history which began in 1869, with the completion of the then Athens & Piraeus Railway. From the 1880s to the 1920s the majority of the network was built, reaching its heyday in 1940. From the 1950s onward the railway system entered a period of decline culminating in the service cuts of 2011. Ever since the 1990s the network has been steadily modernized, but still remains smaller than its peak length. The operation of the Greek railway network is split between the Hellenic Railways Organisation, which owns and maintains the infrastructure and TrainOSE and other private companies that run the trains on the network. Greece is a member of the International Union of Railways. The UIC Country Code for Greece is 73.
context_section_description: Greek independence in 1832 coincided with the start of the railway era.  By 1835 plans were being put to the Greek state to construct a railway line from Athens to the port of Piraeus.  Twenty-two years later, in 1857, a contract for its construction was signed and the work commenced.  It took four different companies a further twelve years to lay the 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi) of track, the work being completed in 1869.
  Greece towards the end of the 19th century was a collection of small agricultural towns acting as marketplaces and economic centres for the villages that surrounded them.  Greece had very little industry and few roads, which made the government think about the development of a railway system that would go towards addressing the lack of internal and external communication that existed. In 1881 the Prime Minister, Alexandros Koumoundouros signed four contracts for the laying of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) standard gauge lines, with the intention of making Greece a pivotal point on the journey between Europe, India and Asia.
  In the following year, 1882, Koumoundouros was replaced by Charilaos Trikoupis as Prime Minister, who cancelled the contracts, replacing them with four of his own.  He had a different political vision for the railways, seeing them as a way of stimulating the internal growth of Greece and proposed a 417 kilometres (259 mi) narrow-gauge (1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in)) system encircling the northern Peloponnese, with a separate system in Thessaly; linking the port of Volos with the town of Kalambaka on the other side of the Thessalian plain.  There was also a line of 76 kilometres (47 mi) to be laid from Athens to Lavrio, on the peninsula of Eastern Attica.  Trikoupis preferred narrow gauge over standard gauge due to cheaper initial construction costs, although the line linking Athens to Larissa, which was planned to eventually join with the European system, was constructed to 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) standard gauge.  The network took 25 years to complete, 20 years longer than the 5 anticipated by Trikoupis.
  Railway companies that arose during this era include: SPAP (Piraeus - Athens - Peloponnese Railways), which operated the system in the Peloponnese, the Thessaly Railways, which operated the lines in Thessaly, the Attica Railways, which operated the railways in Attica and the Railways of Northwest Greece, which operated the railways in Aetolia-Acarnania. 
  By 1909, 1,606 kilometres (998 mi) of track had been laid, including the main standard-gauge line to the then Greek-Turkish border at Papapouli, past the Tempi valley (400 km north of Athens).  The first trains to run the full 506 kilometres from Athens to Thessaloniki on standard-gauge track marked the completion of the line in 1918, which by then was running entirely on Greek territory.
caption: Lamia station c.1910
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