Do Trains Run in Greece???
 

Hi All
I have just spent the most frustrating hour dealing with Rail Europe trying to get some sort of schedule of train times in Greece.. Each time I get the message that I have to call them to schedule a train trip. It seems that I ran across here somewhere, someone stating that the government had stopped all international train travel in/out of Greece. Is this true? Does anyone have any information on getting a train from Thessaloniki to Athens? Thank you.

Shrink

That is true. Trains run WITHIN Greece (though on a cut-back schedule, but trains to/from Greece to other countries have been discontinued at the moment due to the financial crisis. However, the train service from Thessaloniki to Athens has continued. Rail Europe will not be a source of information for that. You would have to use Greece's internal rail website,which has its own problems. Did you try simply Googling "Greece domestic rail timetables" ??? I just did so, and came up with this useful link.
http://europetrainsguide.com/Countri...reece-OSE.html
This nongovernmental Europe train source acknowledges that there is trouble accessing the info on the official (OSE) site, so it lists the basic timetable & fares that you need.

Before I despair, I always try Google -- often it succeeds when your accustomed links do not.

By the way, if you need additional information (from others who know more about trains than I do), they may not see this message because it does not appear in the Greece Forum page list. Perhaps you did not label it for Greece?

here are schedules for trains from/to Athens, within Greece... we used this timetable (Karditsa to ATH) in December '10. GREAT!!! Clean, cheap and on time.

to points north - Evia, Larissa, etc...
http://www.athensguide.com/practical...waylarissa.htm

Suburban Railway Schedule and Peloponessos Schedule
http://www.athensguide.com/practical...an-railway.htm

For real information on European railways, www.bahn.de.

But if you'd rather get unreliable sales pitches from a badly informed and dishonest sales agency for overpriced railway passes, Rail Europe, a French-owned, US-operated, broker, is just fine.

Please note that the above link,
http://www.athensguide.com/practical...an-railway.htm
is out of date. Many trains routes were stopped altogether at the beginning of 2011. The surburban trains still run & the mainline Athens-Thessaloniki, but not much else. There are no longer any trains to Pyrgos or Kalamata.
Translated from the OSE site regarding inter-country trains, this was posted on there on April 9th '11,
>>>We currently do NOT offer any services to and from abroad. We get asked this question very often and the answer is that for the time being we have discontinued all rail services to and from abroad. Passengers wishing to travel to Istanbul, Sofia or Bucarest by train, are kindly advised to seek other means of reaching their destinations.<<<

For Greece the bus is the way to go, extensive coverage to/from Athens as well as to surrounding countries.

According to the Greek Railway official brochure, the trains running from Thessaloniki to Athens are:
Thessaloniki Athens
7:13 11:40
10:13 15:21
11:40 16:43
12:42 18:18
14:54 19:50
16:33 22:46
18:50 23:17
22:59 5:46
23:33 6:12
1:41 6:46
The trains that take longer are the cheapest ones and usually they are on 30-50 minutes delay to reach Athens but the route is ok and safe. However, the fastest ones are on time.

Thank you all very much. The links provided makes my life much easier. I really do appreciate you.
shrink