Athens-Corinth suburban railway line launched
26/09/2005
After many years of construction and delays finally the first part of the new railway line Athens--Corinthos--Patras , is delivered...
The suburban railway line linking Athens with Corinth was officially inaugurated and opened to the public on Monday by transport and communications minister .
--The route from terminal to terminal takes approximately one hour.--
The Athens-Corinth line will run every hour, with the first train departing Corinth for Athens at 8:13 a.m. and for Athens' Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport at 7:08 a.m. The last train will depart for Athens at 8:13 p.m., and for the airport at 5:08 p.m.
Conversely, the first train from Athens for Corinth will depart at 6:06 a.m., and the last one at 6:06 p.m., while the first train from the airport for Corinth will depart at 7:05 a.m. and the last one at 7:05 p.m.
The tickets for the Athens-Corinth ( 88 km ) and Corinth-Athens routes will cost six (6) euros, while for the route Corinth-Airport and Airport-Corinth they will cost eight (8) euros.
The intermediate stops along the route, at the initial stage, are Nea Peramos, Megara, Kineta, and Aghioi Theodoroi, while stations at Ano Liossia, Thriassio, Magoula and Zephyri will be added on towards the end of 2006.
Also, a passenger boarding the suburban railway at Corinth may transfer, at the Neratziotissa station, to the ISAP train line or the Athens Metro.
The new Corinth-Athens route covers a total distance of 88 kilometres, with a maximum speed of 200 kilometres per hour.(actually the maximum speed will be no more then 130 km/h because the railbuses dont go faster)
Construction of the line cost 475 million euros, and was carried out by the OSE (Hellenic Railways Organisation) subsidiary ERGOSE.
The project is not totally finished since the electrification is not installed yet.
Anyway it is a big step towards the modarnization (after 100 years of nothing moving) of the railway network ,especially to the direction of Peloponnese (who still has single track metric gauge line in the rest network)
and some pics :
Corinthos new railway station :
New railway bridge over the canal of Corinth (Isthmus)
Kakia skala railway tunnel
The type of trainsets to be used are Railbuses and "Siemens Desiro class" suburban trains :
