Mountain railroad
July 15, 2009
The little train screeches and strains on its journey, rocking as passengers lean out of the windows to photograph the cascading white waters of the Vouraikos River. They quickly duck back in to avoid smashing their cameras and heads into rock faces almost close enough to scrape the paintwork.
For two years, the narrow-gauge railway linking the seaside town of Diakopto, next to the Gulf of Corinth, to Kalavrita, high in the Helmos Mountain range, has been silent. But now, the tracks are rattling again after the Hellenic Railway Organization spent 40 million euros ($55 million) upgrading one of the most spectacular lines in Europe.
The living embodiment of the children's story "The Little Engine That Could" is back.
"When the first new train ran, tears ran down my face," said Christos Economou, the chief engineer. "It is difficult to understand, but this train is in my heart. It's like my child."
Gone are the smoking, noisy blue diesels that for sixty years chugged along the 22 kilometers from sea level to the eagle's lair. They have been replaced by state-of-the-art carriages that have been tailor-made to handle the 750-millimeter wide track and the climb of 750 meters. In some places, the gradient is 17 percent. Here, a cog system in the center of the track aids traction.
Built by Italian engineers in the 19th century, the railway is one of the most scenic in Europe. In places, the track is just inches away from sheer cliffs. In others, the train scythes through mountain overhangs. Replacing the aging rails, strengthening tunnels and bridges has taken six years.
Tragic history
A tunnel cutting through the rocks over a waterfall is one of the most famous scenes on the trip. It was the path of the railway during the Second World War.
"The villagers of Kalavrita rolled rocks in front of the tunnel to stop the Germans being able to march up the tracks," Economou said.
Kalavrita went down in infamy during the German occupation. On December 13, 1943, in reprisal for an attack by Greek partisans, the Germans rounded up all the male occupants of Kalavrita aged 12 and over and machine-gunned them. Out of nearly 700, only 13 survived.
The train stops to let visitors out at Kalavrita station next to the Holocaust Museum. Some trudge up the hill to the massacre site, marked with a huge cross, and the words "peace" and "no more war" spelled out in Greek in white stones. Tiny, rusting metal-and-glass candle holders, hooked on to metal grave markers, twist in the wind.
Kalavrita is still trying to get compensation from Berlin for the massacre, even though Germany insists it repaid its financial debt with reparation payments made in the 1960s. The town is hoping to emulate Distomo, another Greek massacre site across the Gulf of Corinth, which is achieving success in pursuing German assets through the Italian courts.
Happy tourists are the goal
The town's main lifeblood is tourism. In winter, it is a base for Athenian skiers drawn to the slopes on Mount Helmos. In the summer months, it draws visitors keen to sample cooler Greek air and alpine scenery.
The train's two-year absence has cut the number of visitors and its revival should boost tourism in a critical year for the region's hospitality industry.
"To be honest, this job is not about the money," said Panayotis Terezakis from the Hellenic Railways Organization OSE in justifying the 40 million euro investment.
"We want tourists to have a good journey through the Vouraikos River and this piece of Greek land," Terezakis said. "We hope that all the visitors who have the opportunity to visit this area will feel happy."
Joshua Plummer, a tourist from Sydney, Australia said he was impressed.
"I'm a civil engineer so I was more interested in the technical parts of the train actually and wondering how they actually built it," Plummer said. "It's extremely hard to access and I'm wondering how they could get a train up those steep slopes."
His girlfriend Helen Scarlett said it was a peaceful journey, but also "a little bit scary."
"At the start, it was a little bit spooky, winding through the valley with just the sound of the train squeaking and screeching along," Scarlett said.
Author: Malcolm Brabant (sac)
Editor: Kyle James