From the 1950s onward, the railway system entered a period of decline, culminating in the service cuts of 2011.

The operation of the Greek railway network is split between the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), which owns and maintains the rail infrastructure; GAIAOSE, which owns the building infrastructure (including stations) and the former OSE rolling stock, Hellenic Train; and other private companies that run the trains on the network.

By 1835 plans were being put to the Greek state to construct a railway line from Athens to the port of Piraeus.

[6] Greece towards the end of the 19th century was a collection of small agricultural towns acting as marketplaces and economic centres for the villages that surrounded them.

[citation needed] Greece had very little industry and few roads, which made the government think about the development of a railway system that would go towards addressing the lack of internal and external communication that existed.

[citation needed] In 1881 the Prime Minister, Alexandros Koumoundouros signed four contracts for the laying of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge lines, with the intention of making Greece a pivotal point on the journey between Europe, India and Asia.

He had a different political vision for the railways, seeing them as a way of stimulating the internal growth of Greece and proposed a 417 kilometres (259 mi) narrow-gauge (1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in)) system encircling the northern Peloponnese, with a separate system in Thessaly; linking the port of Volos with the town of Kalambaka on the other side of the Thessalian plain.

By 1909, 1,606 kilometres (998 mi) of track had been laid, including the main standard-gauge line to the then Greek-Turkish border at Papapouli, past the Tempi valley (400 km north of Athens).

Due to the immense financial and social pressure during the interwar period not much railway construction happened.

Also significant was the extension of EIS private company towards Kifisia by absorbing a former Attica Railway line.

From 1911 it was also possible to run through freight trains on the Piraeus Harbour Tramway using dual system electric locomotives.

The other branch ran eastwards to Vrilissia (at a point very near to the present Plakentias station) and then southwards to the villages Peania, Koropi, Marcopoulo, Kalyvia, Keratea, Kamariza and its terminus at the mining town of Lavrio.

[6] To join the Lavrio line to its network, SPAP built a connection between Agioi Anargyroi (Kato Liosia) and Iraklio (1931).

[7] The line from Attiki Square to Kifissia operated as a steam locomotive hauled railway with numerous level crossings until 1938.

A number of railway lines were constructed mainly by mining operations and by extensive industrial facilities.

The French and British troops and their Greek allies had extensive military logistics facilities in and around Thessaloniki.

Proastiakos Thessalonikis is a commuter rail service consisting of two lines and serving much of the region of Macedonia.

Despite operating on the old metre gauge network and having limited infrastructure, it is considered by the public and many experts as the best commuter rail in Greece.