Rail transport by country

The Transport Ministry has demanded the reversal of a decision last week by the Urban Rail Transport Company (STASY) that is forcing commuters on the metro traveling to and from Athens International Airport to change trains at Doukissis Plakentias station.

According to sources cited in the Greek media, the measure, which sparked the ire of commuters, will be scrapped in coming days.

State transport companies recorded a decline in revenues and an increase in losses last year, according to official figures.

Revenues fell 1.8 percent from 2016 to 289.3 million euros, with the 84-million-euro increase in state subsidies failing to plug the gap.

For every euro the transport companies earned as operating revenues last year, they got another from taxpayers.

One woman died and two people were injured near Tithorea in central Greece on Thursday morning, when the car she was driving collided with a speeding train.

Rail company TRAINOSE said train 1511 was heading from Lianokladi to Athens when it collided with a vehicle that ignored the bars on the level crossing.

At least 10 people were killed and more than 70 injured July 8 when most of a passenger train derailed in northwestern Turkey, Turkish authorities said.

Getting around Athens will be that much harder next week as trolley bus and Proastiakos suburban railway drivers have both announced stoppages.

On Wednesday, the capital will not have any trolley bus services from noon to 5 p.m. as workers attend a general assembly that had been postponed.

Striking French rail workers disrupted train services for the seventh day this month on April 18, spurning government calls to end the industrial action over reforms at the state-owned SNCF railway company.

A rolling strike against railway reforms that is expected to cause traffic chaos is not justified, according to a small majority of French people in a poll published on Sunday, Reuters reports.

Construction work has commenced on the high-speed railway connecting the capital Ankara to the central Anatolian province of Sivas. 

A showdown between French railway workers and President Emmanuel Macron's government grew more threatening on Tuesday after an internal labor union message suggested rail workers could paralyze services even outside of official strike days.

Greek rail workers will be holding a series of stoppages on Monday and a 24-hour strike on Tuesday, protesting staff shortages and the government's plans to privatize railway carriage maintenance firm Rosco.