Xanthi railway station

Xanthi railway station (Σιδηροδρομικός Σταθμός Ξάνθης) is a railway station that servers the city of Xanthi, in Xanthi in East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. The station is located 3 km southwest of the city centre, but still within the city limits. The station (as of 2019) is staffed, but only at peak times, but has waiting rooms and a taxi rank.

History
The station opened in 1900. Xanthi was annexed by Greece on 18 October 1912 during the First Balkan War. On 17 October 1925, The Greek government purchased the Greek sections of the former Salonica Monastir railway, and the railway became part of the Hellenic State Railways, with the remaining section north of Florina ceded to Yugoslavia. In 1970 OSE became the legal successor to the SEK, taking over responsibilities for most of Greece's rail infrastructure. On 1 January 1971, the station and most of the Greek rail infrastructure were transferred to the Hellenic Railways Organisation S.A., a state-owned corporation. Freight traffic declined sharply when the state-imposed monopoly of OSE for the transport of agricultural products and fertilisers ended in the early 1990s. Many small stations of the network with little passenger traffic were closed down. On 9 September 2007, the station reopened. Since 2007, the station is served by the Proastiakos Thessaloniki services to New Railway Station. In 2009, with the Greek debt crisis unfolding OSE's Management was forced to reduce services across the network. Timetables were cut back, routes closed, and stations left abandoned as the government-run entity attempted to reduce overheads. Services from Thessaloniki and Alexandroupolis were cut back from six to just two trains a day, reducing the reliability of services and passenger numbers. In 2016 upgrade work on the line resulted in no stopping services between Drama and Xanthi. There is old abandoned boxcar shunted onto one of the sidetracks, very close to the station buildings. In 2017 OSE's passenger transport sector was privatised as TrainOSE, currently, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane infrastructure, including stations, remained under the control of OSE. In July 2022, the station began being served by Hellenic Train, the rebranded TranOSE

Facilities
The station has waiting rooms within the original brick-built station building. There is a cafe-ouzerie next door. The station is staffed only at peak times.

Services
On 25 September 2016, as part of the planned upgrade ‘reorganization’ of the rail network, the Drama-Xanthi rail link was suspended. The planned interruption was scheduled to take 6 to 9 months. However, between 2018 and 2022, passenger traffic between Drama and Alexandroupoli was completely shut down. As of September 2022, trains are running again on weekdays between Xanthi and Alexandroupoli xanthiNea, but this service ended already in February 2023.

Between July 2005 and February 2011, the Friendship Express, (an international InterCity train jointly operated by the Turkish State Railways (TCDD) and TrainOSE linking Istanbul's Sirkeci Terminal, Turkey and Thessaloniki, Greece) made scheduled stops at Xanthi.