Athens–Piraeus Electric Railways 1869 as a steam train connecting Athens and its port, Piraeus, and was operated by Athens & Piraeus Railway Co ( or ). The project was considered important, so Queen Olga and the Prime Minister Thrasyvoulos Zaimis attended the inauguration ceremony. There were 8 trains in each direction daily and 9 trains in each direction on Sundays. In 1874 the Athens & Piraeus Railway Company was bought by the Bank of Industrial Credit (). Under the new ownership the railway procured additional rolling stock. Soon the line was extended to Omonoia Square with an underground section constructed with the cut-and-cover
Port of Piraeus for top 100 container ports in 2015 Piraeus ranked 8th in Europe and 3rd the Mediterranean sea. The port of Piraeus is expected to become the busiest port of the Mediterranean in terms of container traffic by 2019. Until the 3rd millennium BC, Piraeus was a rocky island connected to the mainland by a low-lying stretch of land that was flooded with sea water most of the year. It was then that the area was increasingly silted and flooding ceased, thus permanently connecting Piraeus to Attica and forming its ports, the main port of Cantharus and the two smaller of