Coming up short, again

We wake up once more asking ourselves: "How did this happen?" And again we hear of tragic shortages and oversights. As the head of the union of drivers at Hellenic Train SA, Kostas Genidounias, lamented on Wednesday: "Nothing works; everything is done manually. Even the light signals don't work. If they did, the drivers would have seen the red signals and stopped in time."

In other words, train drivers in Greece are going in blind and relying on information that is transmitted verbally. "The information is relayed from one stationmaster to the other over the radio. The stationmaster in Athens will say, 'Proceed to Menidi' then, 'Proceed to Oinoi.' This happens 15 times between Athens and Thessaloniki," Genidounias told state broadcaster ERT.

Everything, therefore, is left to chance. "The train was idle, running late and I heard the driver talking to the ticket master...