Railroads of Greece 9: North Coast of the Peloponnese (Greece 2019-05)

The Piraeus, Athens and Peloponnese Railways (known as S.P.A.P., or in French, the Chemin de fer du Pirée-Athènes-Peloponése) was founded in 1882. It owned and operated the 1 m (3 ft 3⅜ in) (metre gauge) railway system connecting Piraeus and Athens to various destinations in the Peloponnese region of Greece.

Peloponnese system map, from poster in rail museum in Diakofto

Service on the 1-m system was abruptly discontinued in 2011 during the Greek economic crisis. Small towns in the central Peloponnese were abruptly left without train service. My family and I were fortunate to take the old train in 1997 from Kato Achaia to Athens. It was slow and rather smelly, a throwback to an earlier era.

Currently, the Athens Suburban Railroad runs from the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (ATH) through the northern suburbs of Athens, across the Corinth Canal, and as far west as the town of Kiato. This full gauge rail system is being extended to the western seaport of Patras. In mainland Greece, the new rails use a different right-of-way, but along the narrow Peloponnese coastal plain facing the Gulf of Corinth, the new tracks have buried many stretches of the old single-track line.

During my 2019 visit to Greece, I tried to follow the old 1-m line and see how many railroad stations and work buildings were still standing. In 2011 and  2018, I photographed the railroad station in Corinth, so there was no need to revisit. For this survey, I started further west, near the town of Nerantza, and drove west along the coast.

This was a workshop or possibly a small station near the town of Nerantza. In 2005, the 1-m track was still in regular use and I was lucky to photograph a diesel work car chugging along the line. In 2019, the building was still standing and still intact, but slowly being covered with vines.

In the main town of Xilokastro, I could not find a depot or rail yard. But further west, in the little resort town of Lycoporia, I stumbled on the former depot. It was clean and well-painted.

Diakofto rail yard, 1998 (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Leica M3 camera, 20mm ƒ/5.6 Russar lens)

Workshops at Diakofto, Greece

Unused water tower for steam locomotives, Diakofto, Greece

The town of Diakofto (Greek: Διακοπτό) is the lower terminus of the popular Diakofto–Kalavryta Railway, an 1880s 750 mm gauge Abt rack system that threads the dramatic Voraikos Gorge and ends at the mountain town of Kalavryta. I wrote about the ride in 2012. The 1950s or 1960s-vintage depot is still in use for the 750 mm tourist train, but much of the rail yard has been dug up and rebuilt to accommodate the new full-gauge railroad.

750mm gauge steam locomotive, mgf. by Cail in 1891, in poor condition, Diakofto, Greece

Workshops with 2009-vintage diesel electric Stadler Rail cars on the left and 1960s Deaucaville trainsets on the right 

One traditional stone workshed at Diakofto was clean and fresh. I found neat little workshops or storage sheds like this throughout the system. Many were freshly maintained before the system shutdown in 2011.

A few miles west of Diakofto, I tried to trace the rail line using Google maps. At the town of Elaion, I found the old depot, but the tracks and bed were completely gone. A dirt road that had once been the railroad right-of-way went off to the west, but it was not suitable for a sedan.

Elaion was my westward limit on this excursion. Below a photograph of the former Patras rail station in 1997, when the 1-meter system was still in use. The station was a bit grungy but active. I have not been there recently.

Patras railroad station, 1997 (Kodak Tri-X Professional film, Rolleiflex 3.5E with Xenotar lens) 

The 2019 photographs are from Fuji Acros 100 film, which I used in my Leica M2 camera with 35mm and 50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lenses. I added green or yellow filters on some frames to lighten foliage or enhance the sky. The photograph of the Patras station was from my old Rolleiflex with a 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens.

The next post is about the handsome train station in Tripolis.

Railroads of Greece 6: Abandoned Steam Trains, Myloi

Myloi is the final resting place for old steam locomotives. The town is on the west side of the Bay of Naufplio (Nauplion), which is at the north end of the Argolic Gulf in southern Greece. The narrow-gauge Peloponnese railroad passes through town. The main line to Athens comes in from the north via the town of Argos. Heading south, the rail line runs along the coast and then turns west and ascends the mountains to eventually reach Tripoli, the main town in the central Peloponnese.

Not much is happening at the rail yard now. Not long ago, many of the track beds were overhauled and new rails laid, as shown by the clean crushed rock in the second photograph. But after spending significant funds on upgrades, the Greek national railway system abruptly stopped rail service on the narrow gauge system in most of the Peloponnese. What an amazing bike and hike trail this would make.

The real reason to stop in Myloi is to look at the old steam locomotives, many of which have been abandoned for decades. I have no idea why they were parked here rather than sold for the scrap iron.

Asbestos cement is dripping off the boilers.

More old locomotives are parked among the huge eucalyptus trees. I do not know the types or manufacture, but there are web pages that have inventoried lost locomotives around the world.

This is one of the water tanks that once supplied water to the locomotive tenders. The need for water to generate steam was a major logistical problem in the steam locomotive era. Today, a diesel locomotive only needs diesel fuel and it can run for days.

A family was living in the old train workshop, possibly immigrants. They had bicycles and laundry.

One diesel-electric unit was abandoned on a siding.

What do you do when you are finished exploring trains? Well, you go to the taverna and eat fish and squid, of course. These small seaside restaurants do an amazing job - and the ingredients are locally sourced. None of this processed crap full of artificial ingredients and salt that comes in on a Sysco truck.

Please click the link to see black and white photographs of the Myloi rail yard. 

Most images are digital from my Fuji X-E1 digital camera.

Abandoned railroad depot, Lavrion, Greece

In the early 20th century, a narrow-gauge railroad (1-meter gauge?) ran from Kiffisia (a northern suburb of Athens, to Lavrion. At that time, Lavrion was a mining town on the east coast of the Attica Peninsula, a few miles south of Rafina and north of Cape Sunio. According to Wikipedia, the railroad opened in 1885 and was later extended to downtown Athens. Here is an 1888 photograph from Wikipedia Commons (in the common domain):

Today, Lavrion is no longer a mining town. It was rather rough for decades but has rebuilt itself into a popular yachting center with a clean and cheerful downtown.

A few weeks ago, I was driving on the coast road and saw this derelict railroad depot in the distance. Of course, it was too good to pass up.

It was just a simple little shed but had handsome stonework. It is architecturally similar to a railroad station in Markópoulo that I photographed in 2012.

Wow, great red plaster ceiling. Maybe the station master used the building as a disco.

Here is one of the diesel rail busses on a display in the main town. Pity it is deteriorating.

Lavrion was a mining town as long ago as the Classical Era. Athens' wealth was derived from the silver mined here by slaves. These old works are now part of the Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park, operated by the National Technical University of Athens.

Here is a coffee and pastry shop in another one of the railroad buildings in town. It's a nice way to reuse these sturdy old structures.

The 2015 photographs were taken with a Panasonic G3 camera with 12-32mm LUMIX lens, with raw files processed in PhotoNinja software.

Railroad Warehouses, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Fort Belvoir is an expansive U.S. Army base located on the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, about 8 miles southwest of Washington, DC.

The U.S. Army began using the Belvoir peninsula as training area for the Army’s Engineer School in 1915. When the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, the army needed to train and equip tens of thousands of troops in a short period. This led to the development of a semi-permanent cantonment, named Camp A.A. Humphreys (the former Chief of Engineers from 1866-1879). Over 5,000 soldiers and 6,000 civilians cleared, surveyed, and constructed the camp in only 11 months under difficult conditions and heavy snowfall during the severe winter of 1918. At that time, the Belvoir peninsula was largely undeveloped, consisting of forest and some small farms.

Previously, access to the Belvoir Peninsula had been by boat down the Potomac from Washington, but the Army realized this would not be adequate for a major cantonment housing thousands of troops. The unpaved Washington-Richmond Highway (now US 1) was surfaced in concrete in 1918, and army engineers constructed a railway linking Camp Humphreys with the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad. Eventually, tracks led to numerous warehouses, supplying supplies, fuels, and vehicles for over 20,000 troops. The rail link also served to train Army engineer troops whose specialty was building and running railroads.
This is the only historical photograph I could find, showing construction of the rail bed using mules and manual labor (from the WashCycle web page).
Even more unusual, the Army laid over 20 miles of narrow-gauge (2-ft) track on the post. The narrow-gauge rail was valuable in the European war theater, where most local roads were dirt or mud then.

"From March until the end of the war on Nov. 11, 1918, hundreds of soldiers and engineers trained on the little Camp Humphreys railway, learning how to put together track, build railway trestles and run the tiny steam and gas locomotives. Many of these tiny trains accompanied the troops to Europe, where the Americans and their British and French allies used them to help turn the tide, bringing victory in Europe."

"The two-foot-gauge railway at Camp Humphreys also played an important role in moving supplies and workers engaged in construction projects for the rapidly expanding installation."
(Source: www.army.mil).
Now we come to the purpose of this blog. The last Army railway equipment left the base in 1993 and the track was subsequently removed. But many of the warehouses remain in place. In typical Army fashion, the buildings are secured, painted, and well-maintained, and look like they could be put into operation at a moment's notice (except no trains will pull up ever again). You can see the platforms at the right height for unloading boxcars.
I am not sure what was stored in the neat rows of galvanized steel buildings.
The brick warehouses were also in good condition, and I could not tell if they were being used. Notice the clever security grates designed to allow the swing-out windows to open.
The main base is closed to casual visitors, but the 1,200-acre Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge is open to the public. It offers excellent birding opportunities. There were some plans to convert the old rail line to a rails-to-trails bike and running path, but I do not know how the army would manage the security aspects.

I took the warehouse photographs a Sony DSC-W7 digital camera, tripod-mounted. This was a decent-quality early-vintage digital compact camera. But, it did not record the RAW file, and the jpeg compression was too great, leading to odd artifacts. Still, it served me well for six years until it finally developed power problems. The two wetland photographs are from a lower-resolution Canon PowerShot S330.

Deserted train station, Milies, Greece (B&W film)

This is the fourth essay dealing with Greek railroads.

The quiet village of Milies (Greek: Μηλιές) is the end station for the narrow gauge line that runs from the seaport of Volos into the interior of the Pelion Peninsula. Pelio is a rugged, mountainous region in east central Greece. The lush mountainsides are draped with forests of beech, chestnut and plane trees. The cherries, apples, and apricots are said to be the finest in Greece (and I agree!). Pelio was so rugged, it had little communication with the rest of Greece until the late 1800s. In winter, heavy snow makes roads impassible. During the centuries of Turkish occupation, the Greek villagers here were renowned freedom fighters.

The satellite photograph from NASA shows the peninsula with a view northeast towards the Aegean Sea. Volos is at the head of the bay in the left center.

Because access to the mountainous peninsula was so difficult, the goal of the railroad project was to improve transport and integrate the area into Greece's economy. According to Wikipedia, "The 600 mm (1 ft 11⁵⁄₈ in) gauge line from Volos to Milies, a distance of 28 km, was constructed between 1903 and 1906 by the Italian engineer Evaristo De Chirico." Service began in 1906. Construction was very difficult because of the need for six stone bridges, one iron bridge, protective walls, tunnels, and aerial pedestrian bridges. The photograph above shows an example of the arch bridges, all built by hand by skilled rock masons.

When I took these photographs in 1994, the line was unused and the setting had a charming, sleepy, overgrown look to it. Service had been discontinued in the 1970s, but may have been recently restored for steam locomotive tourist trains.

In the 1990s, there was a well-known bakery here where Athenians would buy bread before returning to the city (about a 5-hour drive to the south). The village ladies above had probably seen it all: strange tourists with tripods and cameras, city-slickers with bags of fresh bread and cherries.

I took these photographs with a Rolleiflex 3.5F twin-lens reflex camera with 75 mm f/3.5 Planar lens (5-element version). Film: Tri-X Pan Professional (120-size), developed in Kodak HC-110 developer. The negatives were scanned on a Noritsu system. The map was made with ESRI ArcMap software.