Diakofto–Kalavryta Railway

Interesting facts

The line and its steam engine, nicknamed Madame Hortense, star in Gerald Durrell's 1974 children's fantasy The Talking Parcel.

It is the steepest railway in Greece, rising from sea level to about 720 metres in roughly 22 km.

Trains are limited to 40 km/h on ordinary track and just 12 km/h on the rack sections.

Six steam locomotives were built specially for the line to a design by the French firm Cail in 1891.

The original plans foresaw continuing the line beyond Kalavryta to Tripoli, but the extension was dropped for lack of money before any work began.

During the Axis occupation the line carried troops and weapons and was badly damaged by both German forces and Greek resistance fighters.

Normal service on the line was only restored around 1948, after the end of the occupation and the turmoil of the civil war.

In 1967 three more trainsets built by Decauville joined the Billard units, and both types ran the line until the Stadler trains arrived in 2009.

Why it is worth it

The Odontotos, the "toothed railway", is one of the great small railways of Europe. It climbs 22 km from Diakopto, on the shore of the Gulf of Corinth, to the mountain town of Kalavryta at about 720 m, and almost all of that distance is spent inside the Vouraikos gorge — a deep, narrow cleft where the track runs on ledges, crosses the river again and again on small bridges and threads short tunnels through the rock. The gauge is only 750 mm, and on the steepest sections, where gradients reach 17.5%, a toothed rack between the rails engages a cog on the train. There are three such rack sections, totalling 3.8 km, using the Abt system.

The line was part of the ambitious plan of the prime minister Charilaos Trikoupis to connect Greece by rail. It was built by a French company with Italian craftsmen who had learned their trade on Alpine railways, and it opened on 10 March 1896 as a branch of the Piraeus, Athens and Peloponnese Railways — for its time one of the most difficult pieces of engineering in the country. Steam locomotives built by Cail in 1891 worked it for decades; one is displayed on a plinth at Diakopto and another is preserved at Kalavryta. Diesel-electric units from Billard took over in the late 1950s, and between 2007 and 2009 the rack and track were renewed and new Swiss-built Stadler trains introduced.

The ride is best taken slowly. Below Zachlorou the gorge narrows to little more than the river and the track, with cliffs overhead; at Zachlorou, the midway stop, the train serves visitors to the Mega Spilaio, the historic Monastery of the Great Cave. The last stretch opens into the upland valley of Kalavryta, the base for the Chelmos ski centre in winter.

Getting there

Diakopto lies on the north coast of the Peloponnese, about 19 km from Aigio; the Diakopto terminus connects with the standard-gauge main line between Athens Airport and the Patras area. The nearest airport is Araxos (GPA), about 65 km away, though Athens International is the usual gateway via the main line. Trains run between Diakopto and Kalavryta several times a day; check timetables before travelling.

From the encyclopaedia

The Diakopto–Kalavryta railway is a historic 750 mm gauge rack railway in Greece. Located on the northern Peloponnese, it runs 22 kilometres (14 mi) from Diakopto through the Vouraikos Gorge and the old Mega Spilaion Monastery and up to Kalavryta, stopping en route at Zachlorou. Today, the stations infrastructure and rolling stock are owned and maintained by the GAIAOSE and the line infrastructure Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE) and passenger trains are operated by Hellenic Train. At the Diakopto terminus, the line connects with the new standard-gauge Athens Airport–Patras railway where the new main line tunnels under the station yard. It now takes 2 hours 10 minutes to reach Athens.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Diakofto–Kalavryta Railway

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia