MURMANSK, February 9. /TASS/. A long-distance train in the Murmansk Region, in northwest Russia, has started stopping at a far-off station to pick up one, lone schoolgirl so that she could return home from school, a spokesman for the local railway company told TASS on Friday.
"We considered and approved the request of the Kandalaksha district administration for an additional stop at the Poyakonda station along the number 21 train route from Murmansk to St. Petersburg," the spokesman said.
The village of Poyakonda has only 50 residents, with just one schoolgirl among them. She attends school at the village of Zelenoborsky, which is a one-hour train ride.
The girl takes a suburban commuter train to get to school but it goes back to Poyakonda only around 8 p.m.
The girl’s station was excluded from the schedule of long-distance trains in December and sending a school bus to pick up the girl is impossible, as her village can only be reached by a 10-kilometer forest road, local officials said.
Therefore, they contacted Russian Railways to put the Poyakonda station back on the schedule of stops for this Murmansk-St. Petersburg train.