RAIL workers in Greece staged a 24-hour strike today in protest over what they describe as a dangerous failure to modernise the Greek railway system and the lack of public investment in the network.

This comes days after the country’s deadliest rail crash in northern Greece which killed at least 43 people when a train from Athens to Thessaloniki carrying 350 passengers crashed head on into a freight train shortly before midnight on Tuesday.

Greek Railroad Workers Union president Yannis Nitsas said that eight rail workers were among the dead, including the two drivers of the freight train as well as the two drivers on board the passenger train.

The strike action by the rail union halted national rail services and the Athens underground.

In a statement, the union said: “Unfortunately, our long-standing demands for staff hirings, better training and above all use of modern safety technology always end up in the wastepaper basket.” 

The union has long argued that the network has suffered from major underinvestment, particularly during the debt crisis and subsequent privatisation and cuts spree imposed on Greece by the European Union.

The cause of the crash is still unclear. A station manager arrested after the collision was charged on Wednesday with multiple counts of manslaughter and causing serious physical harm through negligence.

A judicial inquiry has been set up by the government to establish why the two trains were travelling in opposite directions on the same track.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the collision “a horrific rail accident without precedent in our country,” and pledged a full, independent investigation.

Meanwhile Greece’s transport minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, saying that he had made “every effort” to upgrade the railway network that was in a state that did not “befit the 21st century.

“When something as tragic as this happens, it’s impossible to continue as if nothing has happened.”

On Wednesday, several hundred protesters took to the streets of Athens, to demonstrate outside Hellenic Train’s headquarters.

The protesters blamed the deadly disaster on the government’s privatisation of the railway operator.

The secretariat of Greek workers’ organisation Pame said: “The causes lie in the policy of commercialisation and privatisation of the railways that the Syriza government started in 2017.”

Minor clashes broke out as some protesters threw stones at the offices of the rail operator and riot police and set skips on fire. No arrests or injuries were reported.