The latest instance of vandalism of rail infrastructure was reported on Sunday in south-central Greece, with a stretch of railroad from the city of Thebes to the Davleia station left without electronic signaling and control.

According to an announcement issued the state-run Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), which owns, operates and maintains rail infrastructure in the country, a contractor’s technicians detected that optical fibers just north of the Thebes station had been deliberately cut.

Afterwards, CCTV footage of the site, which was forwarded to police, reportedly showed that the fiber optics were cut by scissors.

A repair of the digital connection came some 18 hours later, the announcement added. No communications, a loss of display and an inability to remotely operate intermediate stations were the result of the vandalism.
The scourge of vandalism targeting rail infrastructure in the country, most but not all the work of “metal hunters”, has generated heightened attention since a February 2023 two-train collision at the Tempi site in north-central Greece claimed the lives of 57 people – the deadliest rail accident in the country’s history.

At the time, OSE rail traffic masters at the Larissa station switched a north-bound passenger train onto the south-bound line in order to bypass a stretch of railroad that was rendered inoperable due to vandalism. However, due to human error – and failure of adequate electronic and manual backup systems – the passenger train’s conductors were not subsequently ordered back to the north-bound line after bypassing the specific stretch.

Both ill-fated trains were operated by private Hellenic Train.