A train crash occured on 28 February 2023 south of the Tempi Valley near the village of Evangelismos in Thessaly, Greece, when a delayed InterCity train travelling from Athens to Thessaloniki collided head-on with an intermodal train going the opposite way. With 44 dead, 85 injured and around 50 to 60 unaccounted for, it is the worst railway disaster in the history of railways in Greece. Background The passenger train, InterCity 62, the 19:22 Athens to Thessaloniki passenger train, departed from Athens at around 7:30 p.m. EET (5:30 p.m. UTC), a few minutes behind schedule, carrying approximately 350 passengers. This train was operated by Hellenic Train, a subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, and was made up of a rake of Hellenic Train UIC Z1 coaches made by Siemens at SGP Graz and Bombardier at Dunakeszi Carriage Workshops based on the Viaggio Classic platform (themselves based on the ÖBB Modularwagen), towed by HellasSprinter locomotive 120 022. At the time of the accident, the train was well behind schedule, meant to arrive at 11:35 p.m. EET at Thessaloniki station. Meanwhile, a freight train with several flatcars loaded with containers and plate steel was travelling from Thessaloniki to Larissa, pulled by another HellasSprinter locomotive, 120 012 Earlier the same day, at Palaiofarsalos railway station, an explosion in the electricity network caused the overhead line to fall on another intercity train, which led to several delays on the line. The crash site was just next to an overpass of the A1 motorway, on a stretch of line that opened in 2003 as part of a line rebuilding program that targeted the Larissa to Thessaloniki segment of the mainline. There is a single block section starting from the exit signal at Larissa until the entry signal at Neoi Poroi. This is due to delays on ETCS implementation, meant to finish in 2020, that will ultimately be implemented in late 2023. This limits the line throughput to 7 trains per hour each way. Collision The two trains collided on the Athens-Thessaloniki mainline, which is operated by OSE, the Greek national railway company. The accident section, north of Larissa, was double-tracked and had automatic controls installed, but switching and signalling were still being controlled manually. The passenger train and the freight train collided head-on near Evangelismos just before midnight, In an interview with ERT, the governor of the Thessaly region, Kostas Agorastos, said the first four