Yerevan Children's Railway

The Yerevan Children's railway.

Yerevan Children's Railway (Armenian: Երևանի մանկական երկաթուղի) is a narrow gauge railroad loop passing through the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan, Armenia. One of many children's railways that existed in the USSR and continued functioning after its breakup. Master plan and the old wood building were designed by architect Mikael Mazmanyan in 1937. The current main station was designed and built by architect Babken Sedrak Hakobyan in the late 1940s.

The railway was opened on June 9, 1937 and was in operation until 2024, no longer as an educational institution, but as a park railway operated by adults. In July of the same year, a decision was made to close it for operation. As of 2024, the railway is not functioning, the locomotives are inoperative, and the stations are closed.

History

In 1935, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia Aghasi Khanjian proposed the construction of the children's railway in Yerevan. In December 1935, the construction of the Yerevan Children's Railway was included by the USSR State Planning Committee in the annual economic plan for 1936.

On 22 April 1936, during the subbotnik in the city park on the left bank of the Hrazdan River, attended by more than 10 thousand Komsomol members, a ceremony in which Khanjian and the Minister of Railways of the Armenian SSR Babken Amatuni laid the foundation stone of the main station, took place.

The deadline for the completion of the project was set for 7 November 1937, yet the construction of the railway was completed four months ahead of schedule. On 9 July 1937, a train, consisting of locomotive 159-434, donated by the Voroshilovgrad Locomotive Plant, and three in-house made open passenger carriages, set off for the first time. Initially, a wooden building of the main station station was constructed but at the end of the 1940s, a new one was built in its place out of tuff.

In March 1959, the railway received two all-metal passenger carriages PAFAWAG. In 1971, it received a TU2-116 diesel locomotive.

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, the road ceased to be a children's railway. It was serviced by adults, and only operated on weekends, when the nearby amusement park was open. The train (sometimes consisting of one carriage) passed the Uraxutyun platform without stopping and stopped near the Pionerakan station. Since almost nothing was left of it, passengers did not leave the carriage, and the train immediately returned to the beginning of the route with its carriages facing forward.

Sources

• Fadeev, G. M.; Kraskovskiĭ, E.; Uzdin, M. M., eds. (1994). Istoriia zheleznodorozhnogo transporta Rossii (in Russian). Sankt-Peterburg; Moskva: AO "Ivan Fedorov". ISBN 978-5-85952-005-3