Greek Railways Organization (Greece)

Organismos Sidirodromon Ellados

Last modified: 2006-05-27 by ivan sache
Keywords: greek railways organization | organismos sidirodromon ellados |
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Flag of the Grek Railways Organization - Image by Ivan Sache & Thanos Tzikis, 18 April 2004

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Flag of the Greek Railways Organization

The flag of the Greek Railways Organization is white with the logotype of the organization in the middle.

Sidirodromon is literally "railway".

sidiros means iron, and the Ancient Greek root sider- is used in a few scientific and technological words such as:

• sideremia: concentration of iron in blood serum
• siderodendron: tree from tropical America whose hard reddish wood is called ironwood
• siderolithic: rich in ferruginous concretions
• sideropaenia: decrease in iron concentration in the organism
• siderophilin: protein from the blood plasma, able to fix iron
• siderosis: respiratory disease caused by inhalation of iron dust
• siderotherapy: use of iron and its components as a therapeutics
• sideroxylon: tropical tree with a very hard wood called tinwood

and, in French, sidérurgie, which does not seem to exist under that form in English, iron and steel metallurgy and industry.

dromos means race, and is mostly used as a suffix for places where races take place, apparently more often in French than in English. My standard dictionary shows velodrom and aerodrome/airdrom, but no direct English equivalent of hippodrome (for horse races) and cynodrome (for hound races). In Ancient Greece, the dromos was a track, originally dedicated to race. Under the Byzantine Empire, the civil servant in charge of the Imperial post and mail service was called dromos logothetes.

Since the first railway was invented in England and not in Greece, I guess that the world sidirodromon was formed after "railway" and not the opposite. Similarly, the first railway build in France was named chemin de fer, which is also a literal translation of sidirodromon via "railway". The German Eisenbahn, the Dutch spoorweg, etc., were probably formed on the same pattern.

Ivan Sache, 18 April 2004