The Small Moscow Railway began operations

In fact, it was the schoolkids who initiated the project of a children’s railway in Kratovo at their meeting in Ramenskoye district in October 1935. On June 24, 1936, the little communists took up the construction of their own railway, with its first section finished by November 7, 1936.

This included 2.3 km of track (including 1.8 km of the main track) and temporary wooden buildings at Youth (formerly, Lenin’s Way) and School stations.

Train services commenced on May 2, 1937. Steam locomotives VL-1 (Vladimir Lenin) and IS-1 (Joseph Stalin) plied along the route.

This is one of the oldest children’s railways in the post-Soviet space. The length of its tracks is almost 5 km, with the track gauge 750 mm. The academic year on the children’s railway has three phases: in winter, children study theory, in spring they take exams, and in summer they have practical training. At present, the railway is a good opportunity for more than 600 young railway enthusiasts to gain their first professional experience.

The narrow-gauge line is popular with locals and visitors alike: you can take a tourist trip or use it as a mass transit to get around the town. Regular passengers may embark and disembark from the trains at the Pioneers and Youth termini, and the School station between them. The Youth terminus is located near the Otdykh ("Recreation") platform of the Kazan direction of the Moscow Railway, while the Pioneers terminus is situated on the shore of Lake Kratovskoye in the leisure park.