38 passengers of the rack train in Peloponnese were stranded on Sunday in a difficult to access area on the route Diakopto-Kalavryta in northern Peloponnese.
For more than four hours the passengers were trapped in the picturesque carrier and had to wait inside train without air-condition as there was no electricity due to engine failure, media reported.
It was 15:05 on Sunday, when train from Diakopto to Kalavryta suffered a damage halfway through the route at a difficult point at km 6,200 near the Niamata station.
The passengers called the emergency number <112> and remained trapped inside as the train was immobilized in a difficult to access morphological area surrounded by rocks and cliffs on both sides, left and right of the train.
Exclusive pictures & video by local apohxos.gr
Rescuers of the Fire Service launched the evacuation operation which was extremely difficult due to the morphological circumstances.
Among the passengers were elderly and very young children as the baby heard on the video below:
Passengers had to wear protection helmets during the train evacuation.
The wild adventure that took place not in some remote area of … Nepal but in northern Peloponnese was over when the evacuees were safely transferred with a backup train to the town of Diakopto or with a bus to Kalavryta.
In winter 2023, rock slides had stopped again the rack train stranding 90 passengers. it took about two months to repair the damage.
Located on the northern Peloponnese, it runs 22 kilometers (14 mi) from Diakopto through the Vouraikos Gorge and the old Mega Spilaion Monastery and up to Kalavryta, stopping en route at Zachlorou.
Infrastructure and rolling stock are owned and maintained by the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), while the passenger trains are operated by the Hellenic Train.
Local staff told state broadcaster ERT that the main problem on the Diakopto-Kalavryta route is the lack of proper maintenance and spare parts.
