The Children's Railroad

About 10 miles from Moscow, not far from the town of Zhukovsky, between the Kratovo and Otdykh rail stations, lies a three-mile stretch of narrow-gauge rail line. It is the so-called Junior Moscow Railroad, and it is staffed and run entirely by children aged nine to 15.

Better known as the Children’s Railroad, the line has been in operation since 1937 and each summer attracts some 30,000 visitors. It runs in both directions and has two station stops (Pionerskaya and Yunost) and one platform stop (Shkolnaya).

Make no mistake, the children’s railroad is no toy train carrying mice and squirrels from meadow to meadow. It is a real-life railroad – just with a 30 percent narrower gauge. Were Anna Karenina to throw herself in front of one of these trains, she would wind up just as dead.

In the 1930s, enjoying leisure time at the family dacha was as common in Russia as it is now, and many families would spend their entire summers at their dachas (as, for example, in Arkady Gaidar’s famous novel, Timur and His Gang), fleeing the hot, stuffy metropolis to find shade among the pines and tranquility by the lake. In Kratovo – an old town mostly filled with summer homes just outside Moscow, and a favorite destination for academics, artists, and performers – the idea arose of adding another dimension to summer fun by building a children’s railroad.

The notion was simple enough: all the workers on the railroad – the engineer, track inspector, conductor, cashier, maintenance crews – would be children. Of course, this undertaking cannot be separated from its Soviet context. This was, after all, the era of Stalin’s forced industrialization, when children had just begun to be herded through a carefully designed machine for social engineering – from the Little Octobrists to the Young Pioneers to the Komsomol to the Communist Party – whose motto was “tomorrow there may be war.” Initially, the children’s railroad was therefore more a means of preparing the next generation of railroad workers than an opportunity for family fun.

Indeed, children have to undergo training before they can work on the Kratovo Children’s Railroad, and about 70 are currently enrolled in the program. During year one, a child can work as a ticket taker or station steward. The full training course is four to five years, during which one can advance to become an engineer.

Interestingly, the Kratovo train is not unique. Today there are 34 children’s railroads in operation in Russia and the former republics of the USSR. In Soviet times, there were 88.

The world’s first children’s railroad opened on July 24, 1935, in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was just 400 yards long and scaled the slope of a steep hill. The Pioneers of Tbilisi called on all the children of the Soviet Union to support their initiative and create their own train lines. In the six years leading up to World War II, no fewer than 20 more children’s railroads were established. Later, during the war, many ended up under occupation and were destroyed. Nearly all the railroads on the home front also halted their operations. After 1945 some of them were restored, and several new ones showed up as well.

Children’s railroads made a comeback in the mid-1950s and the 1970s, followed by a decline. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, the number of operational “junior” railroads was just 52.

After the fall of the USSR, many children’s railroads were closed and dismantled, in most cases due to inattention and neglect by the Ministry of Transportation and the railroad authority rather than a shortage of funds. Those in charge at the time often had no regard for history, so even the positive things that came with the now rejected ideology were buried along with it. The number of children’s railroads in Russia fell to 20. However, in the last 10 years the trend has shifted, and children’s railroads have been restored in Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk.

The Kratovo railroad was built during 1935-1937 by the Ramensky district’s Young Pioneers, with help from Komsomol members and adults. In order to open the railroad, they started clubs and a school for young railroad workers, both of which are still in operation. The first train left the station on May 2, 1937. Mark Sysuyev wrote in his diary:

This day will forever remain in the kids’ memories. There were about 3000 people crowding Ilyich’s Way [now Yunost’ station], all wanting to get on the first train. However, the right to ride the first few trains was reserved for those who actively participated in building the children’s railroad, and they happily and proudly took their seats in the light-blue cars. The station’s bell announced that the first passenger train (a VL-1 engine and three passenger cars) was ready for departure.

The young station steward, Tonya Novokshanova, passed a baton inscribed “Ilyich’s Way to Shkolnaya” to Venyamin Pasynkov, the young engineer, by way of the head conductor, and then gave the signal for departure. To the strains of a march, the train smoothly headed out on its first run. Thus began the wonderful days of enthralling work for these schoolchildren – the young railroad workers of the Junior Moscow Railroad.

And, as B.P. Borisov wrote in his memoirs:

I will never forget June 6, 1939. That day I came to the Junior Lenin Railway to be head engineer. At first I thought I had somehow ended up in a fairy tale children’s land, where everything was done by the kids themselves. Wherever you looked, you would see serious, lovable kids’ faces.

The engineer in the locomotive was a curly-haired youngster, proudly looking out at everybody. The signalman looked like a sentinel, and I could barely suppress a smile as I observed his expression of impervious self-importance. At the ticket office, a prim girl with a thick red braid was selling tickets...

Kratovo in the 1970s

The opening of the 1941 summer season was set for June 22. Instead, the young railroad workers gathered at the rally learned the horrific news of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR. That summer, the children’s railroad was closed due to air raids. In the spring of 1942, as predicted, the young railroad workers responded to the call, “Replace fathers and brothers gone to the front,” and became involved in building and operating narrow-gauge railroads. Throughout the war, these networks were used to transport lumber that was made into crossties for front-line railroads.

For their heroism and selfless work during the war, three young railroad workers were named Heroes of the Soviet Union; another 12 were awarded medals “For the defense of Moscow.”

Today, thoughts of war are thankfully distant. Twelve-year-old Masha Chernina, a station attendant, says that the Children’s Railroad is a pleasant way to pass the time in the summer while earning a bit of money (about R2000 a month) and learning a profession. Masha finds the experience so interesting that she plans to attend the Moscow State University of Railway Engineering.

But that is several years in the future. Right now, the train is leaving. “Tickets please, all aboard!” RL

The Children’s Railroad in Kratovo operates only in summer. Trains run on the weekends, 10 am to 2 pm, as well as on Wednesdays and Fridays. A round trip ticket from Yunost Station costs 120 rubles ($4). mmzd.net