Greece to install train control systems by September in reform after deadly 2023 crash

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece aims to install remote train control systems to make its railways safer by September, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday, more than two years after the country's worst rail disaster killed 57 people, most of them students.

The head-on collision of a passenger and a freight train on February 28, 2023 has become emblematic of years of neglect of the country's railways. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks took to the streets on the second anniversary of the disaster in February to demand accountability and reform.

Mitsotakis said during a cabinet meeting on Monday that Greece's entire train network will be equipped with automatic remote breaks and train control systems (ETCS) by next September. He also said that real-time train tracking will be installed as a second safety layer, to avert any potential collision.

Accident investigators have said that remote train traffic control systems could have averted the 2023 rail disaster and that safety gaps remain.

Greece has repeatedly pushed back a 2014 project, co-funded by the European Union, to install ETCS and systems allowing remote communication between drivers and traffic controllers. EU prosecutors have charged numerous Greek officials with malpractice over that contract.

Mitsotakis promised this year to fully modernise the country's 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of railway by 2027.

Apart from a national action plan, Greece's Air and Rail Accident Investigation Authority (HARSIA) on February 17 made recommendations - for the railway regulator; the operator, Hellenic Train which is unit of Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato, the state-owned Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), responsible for the network; and the transport ministry.

Mitsotakis said the government would help revamp OSE, boosting wages and hiring and monitoring staff performance. Hellenic Train would also be called to make investments, he said.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Sharon Singleton)