Greek elections: Rail tragedy hangs over vote dominated by dynasties

As backdrops to polling stations go, the view from Kastraki primary school is about as spectacular as it gets.

Visitors are drawn to the scattering of monasteries perched on the edge of huge rocks above.

But beneath the surface of this striking natural beauty is a community consumed with grief.

That’s because three of their brightest stars, who should have been voting for the first time, were killed in February in Greece’s worst-ever train crash.

They were among 57 people who died when an intercity service carrying hundreds of passengers from Athens to Thessaloniki smashed head-on into a goods train on the same line.

Ahead of Sunday’s general election, opposition parties have raised the disaster time and again as a symptom of a broken government and dysfunctional state.

Both Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of centre-right New Democracy and his predecessor Alexis Tsipras of centre-left Syriza have visited the families bereaved by the Tempi train crash.

But above all, it is a story of personal loss.