The aftermath of Storm Daniel in Greece last week is becoming all the more visible. The central north-south Greek railway axis has been impacted heavily, with 50 kilometres of railway infrastructure in Central Greece destroyed. The Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE) managing director, Panagiotis Terezakis, spoke of reconstruction works reaching 50 million euros. At the same time, he confirmed that there will be no rail traffic for at least a month.

The latest news confirms RailFreight.com’s report that the port of Piraeus and COSCO will be stranded from railway connections for the long run. After the first damages were revealed, the initial estimation spoke of at least a week with no railway connections on the north-south rail axis and between Greece, the Balkans and Central Europe. However, it appears that the situation requires much more time and financial resources, which are already scarce in Greece when it comes to railway investments.

What will this mean?

The port of Piraeus is served by rail via COSCO’s subsidiary Ocean Rail Logistics, which is also the main shareholder of the Piraeus Europe Asia Rail Logistics S.M.S.A. (PEARL), the rail operator carrying out services from Greece and through the Balkans. Additionally, it is among the shareholders of the Rail Cargo terminal-BILK in Budapest, showcasing the importance Central Europe has for Piraeus regarding rail logistics.

Piraeus connects with several railway services per week with terminals like Dunajska Streda and Bratislava in Slovakia, the BILK terminal in Hungary, Belgrade in Serbia, Pardubice in Czechia, Dragoman in Bulgaria and Skopje in North Macedonia. Additionally, COSCO’s subsidiaries run weekly liner and block trains in the north direction.

Understandably, a one-month closure of the main Greek railway network will significantly impact COSCO’s services, which do not reduce only to the aforementioned destinations since they serve cargo forwarding to other countries like Poland, Austria and Romania. A possible solution would be to deploy road transport services, which for now could not take place considering that the main highways in Central Greece are also flooded, and the country is practically cut in half. COSCO has not yet communicated anything concerning the situation or the impact assessment on its services.