Great Western Coffee Shop

In a forest park near Kharkiv there is a narrow gauge, but "full size", railway run by children/teenagers as platform staff, signallers, driver's assistants etc. The railway is 3.6km long with two stations, called imaginatively Park and Forest Park, and one intermediate platform. It has two trains, each with a diesel locomotive and consisting of six carriages. One of the sets of carriages was built in Poland, the other I think is of Soviet construction (with the Polish one being of similar age).

The children's railway was opened on 8 November 1940 and normally runs throughout the summer (I think from 1 April to end of September). For its 70th anniversary, a museum was opened. And the purpose of the railway, apart from being an attraction in the park, is to train and encourage interest among children in railway careers.

That's the essence of what I was able to glean from this website
https://www.pz.gov.ua/dept/100062?lid=2
using my rusty Cyrillic and knowledge of other Slavonic languages. If you run it through google translate you'll probably be able to correct some mistakes I've made!

(https://www.pz.gov.ua/dept/dosug/img/mju_11.jpg)

(https://www.pz.gov.ua/dept/dosug/img/mju_02.jpg)

Interesting, I presume that the actual driving is done by adults, but there is no real reason why sensible children cant perform most other roles.
A lot of maintenance and repair work could be done by older children, but I suspect that the more dangerous worshop machinery and hazerdous chemicals are restricted to adults.
Signalling is presumably interlocked to protect against human error.

And we should remember that within living memory, that 14 year olds worked on UK railways, they were called apprentices and not children then.
It is alleged that rural signal boxes where left in the charge of the signalmens children at times, at least up to the last war.

Yes, the driving, if I understood correctly, is done by adults but the children ? and they're teenagers really ? act as "driver's assistants" which presumably is something like an apprentice.

On the general subject of child labour, I've been reading Mary Beard's SPQR, in which she says of child labour in the Roman Empire that it was universal and not regarded as any sort of problem, in fact it would not even be recognised as a category. And she adds in parentheses that even today it's almost exclusively a Western concept.

People respond to how they are treated from quite an early age and by holding back on letting young people take responsibility for things those older haven't the courage to trust them with.  I am not advocating sending 6 year olds up chimneys or 8 year olds down the mines but I do support giving young people responsibility; yes, I did the "with my own children" test for that - really proud when they stepped out, worked in a none-exploited way, planned, travelled, cooked for themselves (very occasionally showing they know how to clean their rooms too).

When we had a team working for us ... my goodness, the young ones could run rings around me on most of the hotel things; proud, very proud, of them.  The biggest problems - and we had a number over the years - were "helicopter parents", where I have a number of tales I could tell.

Many parents in the UK, and many organisations, could do well with giving more real responsibilities ... sadly, there are rules around that hold back and frustrate the bright and keen ones.

Interesting!
There is another "childrens railway" in Budapest. This was set up Hunarian Railways as `sort of training railway for youngsters aspiring to work on the railway. I visited it a few years ago. it was staffed by children but the drivers were adults. I think it was "One engine in Steam" so the chances of a collision were very low! A very enjoyable afternoon trundling through the Hungarian countryside as I recall.

I am sure that I saw one of these railways featured on either Tony Robinson or Chris Tarrant's railways programmes. I can't find anything on Google to confirm this though.

When I was in Lviv a few years ago,what an experience the short bus trip was.

The driver could drive the bus, talk on the phone, listen to the radio, issue bus tickets and take monies and give change.

I've been on the one in Budapest too.  It's easy to get to from the City Centre.  A nice thing to do.

Agree about the one in Budapest. It's supposed to be the world's largest Children's Railway - 11.2 km long. Definitely not "one engine in steam" when we visited - two trains, one of them steam-hauled.

And the southern terminus is a short walk from the upper terminus of the Budapest Cog-wheel Railway, a rack line.  Which, when we visited, was operating as rail replacement buses.  Budapest's public transport is diligently signed in both Hungarian and English, but the rail replacement bus was, alas, only in Hungarian. Fortunately I read Bus fluently.

The Budapest one was featured in the 1980 series of Great Railway Journeys, in an episode called Changing Trains.

This episode was also notable for featuring the APT.

I wonder if any of the young staff in that episode are now parents of the current crew?

Scary, just been watching Travelman 48 hours in Budapest on Dave and what should appear but the railway run by Children.