International Railroad Discussion > Armenia, part 5. Childrens Railway Station

The Childrens Railway Station would be a respectable structure for any train stop, and it certainly adds to the charm and legitimacy of the small railway line it serves.

It looked like it had been 10 or 20 years since the station was properly kept up, but since there aren't many vandals, taggers, homeless folks, etc. in this part of the world it is still in pretty good condition.

A lightly traveled pedestrian path across the river passed along the south veranda of the station, and an old man was there selling ricecakes and other snacks from a card table. I bought a ricecake, he declined having his photo taken, but he kindly took a photo of me coming up the stairs.

The station and environs was very nicely designed, a classy affair altogether. A successful mix of amusement park architecture and styles, with construction materials designed to last. I'm sure many park trains were built around the world that were just as elegant and pretty as this one, but this one appears to have been highly functional for getting hundreds of riders to and on the train in style. And built to last, with solid construction, rather than the flimsy facade-focused stuff that amusement parks usually had.

1) Station as seen from the gorge side.

2) Another view from the gorge side, looking at the stairs up to the amusement park.

3) The ricecake vendor took this photo for me, ricecake in hand. (Very nicely framed, isn't it? He'd do well as an on-site photographer during the operating season)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/18 14:13 by gobbl3gook.

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4, 5 and 6) It was hard to get a good photo of the station from the track side, it loomed over the boarding area and the flanks were obscured by trees.

The veranda in photo 6 is where the ricecake vendor stood, and was part of the footpath route from the east to west side of the river as I mentioned above. Folks would come strolling through every 2 or 3 minutes, which certainly keeps the station from feeling creepy and abandoned in the off season months.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/18 13:35 by gobbl3gook.

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7) The station interior -- open-air, but holding up to the elements pretty well. Ticket windows, if I recall correctly, were solidly shuttered and apparently not deemed photoworthy that afternoon. And no train board, or other schedule posted. I liked the upper level walkway.

8) Another photo of the tracks -- the tracks seemed to be the best maintained part of the whole operation. Looked good for 60 kmh.

9) 400 meters down the 700 meter system was a "suburban" station.

As others stated in the previous thread, Childrens Railways in Eastern Europe/the USSR were established in part to provide hands-on training for children to become railroaders. This sounds like a pretty fabulous system to me. As a bored teenager in suburban St. Paul, MN in the 1980s I would have loved to have been able to take a bus into some big city park and work on a scaled down, but fully operational train system. And it seems like kids anywhere, American, Armenian or Russian would probably benefit from the same today.

Questions or comments? I have more photos, if you want to see any more detail or aspects I might be able to provide.

Photos taken around Nov 1, 2017, Yerevan Armenia

Ted in OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/18 13:45 by gobbl3gook.

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Bonus pics -- children

On children -- in the former USSR they are free-range from a much younger age than in the US. In Kazakhstan kids were on the run from age 8 or so on up. In cities and in the country. In the Caucasian states they were free-range in the country, maybe not so much in the cities.

Kazakhstan in particular was impressive with the independence given to children. The whole country had an informal taxi system, anyone could stand anywhere with their hand in the air and within a few seconds someone would pull over. You'd see about 10 seconds of discussion, probably a little money change hands, then folks would like in and they'd all drive away. And kids would also cross busy 4 lane streets at marked crosswalks, just sauntering across the road and traffic would stop for them.

Certainly a much more interesting place to be a kid than 2010s USA with hoverparents strapping 8 year olds into youth carseats in the backs of minivans before letting them see a world of stripmalls from a tinted side window. Or driving their 13 year olds across town to soccer practice, only sitting in front if they're lucky to be tall enough not to get killed if the airbag deploys.

10) Kids in Almaty, KZ. These two befriended me when I was watching trains, we tried English words back and forth, it was fun to see the wheels turning in their heads as they dredged up English words stored in the "useless school memorization" sections of their brains and tried to dust them off for real-world use.

11) Village kids in Mets Sapasar, Armenia, a mountain farming village. They hollered at me as I was riding through, wouldn't stop hollering until I'd stopped and turned around, then shyly tried talking and insisted on photos.

12) Not free-range kids, but on the Selfie Theme here are some shepherds of free-range sheep. They offered me vodka. Aregnadam, Armenia



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/18 14:23 by gobbl3gook.

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And, detail crops on the shepherds...

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Thanks for sharing! I love the human element...its amazing just how friendly and warm some cultures are to outsiders. Here in the States while fanning, I've had kids throw rocks at me, cuss and insult myself or others, total strangers to them. Its nice to see humanity still exists in pockets around the world. Looking forward to your next installment!

The last picture is really nice. I'll really hate to see this series end.

GettingShort--

I'm glad you're enjoying my Caucasus threads. Don't worry, there's more to come, and Eastern Europe after that.

You were part of my inspiration for getting out to these far flung places, BTW. I'd come across your various threads and think "I need to get myself out riding trains in these places." Then, I had a trip around the world I'd been planning, and a bout of laziness about applying for a Russian tourist visa, and before I knew it I had settled on Central Asia and was piecing together my route.

If any of you haven't perused GettingShort's international trip report threads, here's some starters.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3203985
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3432281
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3530630
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3594140

And find the rest of them with an image search.
https://www.trainorders.com/images2/index.php?start=312&category=0&search=gettingshort&author=on&title=&description=

Ted in OR

This is a great thread. Thanks for sharing it.

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1