#toptrain

Can Greek Rail Catch Up?                                                  

In an exclusive Bloomberg project staff photographer Simon Dawson spent a week documenting the modernisation of Greece's antiquated rail network as it electrifies a final 106-kilometer stretch linking Athens and Thessaloniki.

Electrifying the whole Athens-Thessaloniki route has a price tag of about 2 billion euros, according to Erga Ose. The cost rises to 3.3 billion euros when the Thessaloniki-Idomeni upgrade and a planned electrified rail link from Athens to the western Greek port city of Patras are included, Erga Ose said.

* The work — much of it in mountainous terrain — is due to end in 2017, when journey times between Greece’s two biggest cities will be cut to three hours and 20 minutes from almost five-and-a-half hours.

*This section has 46 bridges and 15 tunnels, one of which stretches for 9.2 kilometers.

*The bridges and tunnels are all being built to withstand earthquakes as high as 7.5 on the Richter scale.