A German-made rail trolley, or draisine, from 1937 now greets visitors on the grounds of Thessaloniki Railway Station. These lightweight vehicles were used to inspect, maintain and repair the rail network, but also to transport equipment, helping keep the railway system operational during World War II.
“This particular trolley has been identified in a photograph taken in the Karya area [in Fthiotida] during the German occupation,” explains Jason Zorzos, a railway historian and museum collections officer for Hellenic Railways.
“As you can imagine, intensive efforts were made during the war to maintain the infrastructure, as the movement of 84 trains a day during the mobilization period [through the end of November 1940] significantly increased the loads and strain on the network. Railway personnel had to work around the clock to ensure that the lines remained operational,” he says.
Running through the end of the month and organized to coincide with Ochi Day on October 28, the exhibition, “On the Front Line: The Railway During the Greco-Italian War, 1940-1941,” presents a collection of historical artifacts, official documents and photographs illustrating how the railway system was organized and operated during one of the most critical periods in Greece’s modern history. But before perusing the exhibits – which include firemen’s shovels, telegraphs, portable magnetic telephones, railway detonators used by train conductors to warn engineers that a section of track was occupied, and a stationmaster’s lantern – visitors should also examine the map created by the curatorial team.
“The railway was the backbone of transportation in Greece in 1940,” says Alexandros Sikalias, the exhibition’s artistic curator. “To understand the role of the railway during the war, you have to consider conditions at the time. The road network was rudimentary, consisting mainly of paths and rural roads. Many areas and villages were cut off, and even where roads did exist, they were largely incapable of meeting the need to transport large numbers of people and quantities of supplies.”
The railway was the only form of land transportation capable of meeting the speed and volume demands of military mobilization. It played a decisive role in rapidly moving reservists, ammunition and food supplies to the front, first to establish a defensive line and later to organize a counteroffensive.
According to research by prominent railway historian Giorgos Handrinos, the exhibition’s historical adviser, archival records also document the transport of 2,000 horses and mules.
Sikalias notes that even the establishment of military facilities and sorting centers was directly linked to the railway lines and the locations served by the network, including Amyntaio, in Florina in the north, where the bulk of the troops arrived, and Larissa in central Greece.
Hospital trains also played a very important role, though their contribution remains largely unknown. “Many refrigerated railcars were used during the war to transport wounded troops and as mobile operating rooms because of their insulation,” Zorzos explains.
“Few people know how wounded soldiers were brought back or treated. Trains had been used for this purpose before, but not refrigerated railcars,” Sikalias adds.
The Hellenic Railways Historical Archive was established in 2019. Most of its paper records were discovered in rail depots, stations and the headquarters of OSE, the Greek railway organization, on Karolou Street in downtown Athens. The collection was further enriched by donations of personal archives from railway employees and the families of former employees.
“The Greek railway archive represents a largely unknown part of the country’s heritage. The railway’s history is inextricably linked to Greece’s economic and social development, as well as the expansion of its borders,” Sikalias points out.
The Greek Army used railway lines to advance into Western Macedonia, following the rail routes during its military operations as early as the Balkan Wars (1912-1913).
“The archive, therefore, is not just about the history of a company but also sheds light on broader aspects of the history of the Greek state. Efforts to preserve and conserve the collection are still underway, but its future use by researchers could reveal previously unknown details about the economy, urban development and social life,” Sikalias says.
On the job
The exhibition also features photographs displayed on two separate panels: one devoted to the rolling stock used during the war and the other to the people who worked on the railways. Although the War Museum’s collections contain only a few films from the period covered by the exhibition, there are photographic prints documenting preparations of the rail network from the interwar years onward, as well as images of railway workplaces in the early postwar years.
They show track maintenance workers on the job, stationmasters and switchmen, locomotive firemen, car inspectors and bridge maintenance workers, locomotive engineers and brakemen.
“The documents and objects are extremely valuable, but nothing tells this story better than a photograph,” says Sikalias, noting that rail operations were severely disrupted, regular services had been suspended, and urgent needs had to be met, including reinforcing and maintaining the network.
“This exhibition is also a tribute to all the people who accomplished this extraordinary feat,” he says.
