Plan to revive historic ‘Peloponnese Railway’ gets Swiss boost
A plan to revive an abandoned meter gauge railway line in the Peloponnese to serve not just as a historic attraction but also passenger needs has received a significant boost after Switzerland offered its help and expertise, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency reported on Tuesday.
According to the state-run news agency, the idea to reactivate Europe’s longest meter gauge railway network was the subject of a meeting between the president of Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), Giannos Grammatidis, and Swiss Ambassador in Athens Stefan Estermann, who expressed his interest in helping the plan go ahead.
To this end, Estermann reportedly assured Swiss support for a feasibility study that is currently under way and whose findings will be discussed at a meeting of all the involved parties in the northwestern Peloponnesian town of Nafplio in December. He also said that he would reach out to relevant actors in Switzerland with experience in operating metric mountain railway systems and creating attractive programs to promote the ‘Peloponnese Railway.’
Grammatidis, for his part, welcomed the offered assistance and underlined the importance of reviving the railway for passenger, cultural and tourist purposes, with the ultimate goal of connecting places of natural beauty and historical interest such as Corinth, Nafplio, Kalamata, Mycenae and Ancient Olympia, among many others.
Grammatidis went on to brief the regional governors of Western Greece Nektarios Farmakis and the Peloponnese Dimitrios Ptochos about joint coordinated actions related to the above project, the AMNA reported.
The ‘Peloponnese Railway’ is part of what was the Piraeus, Athens and Peloponnese Railways, or SPAP, a railway company founded in 1882 and nationalized in 1954.
