In an unprecedented gesture, Japan has kept the Kami-Shirataki train station open for just one passenger- a girl who uses the station to go to school everyday.
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Instead, Kami-Shirataki station will remain open until March 26th, which is the end of the school year and the day that the unnamed girl will graduate.
And she’s the only one who gets on the train.
The railway company had planned to shut the station down three years ago as it was virtually unused, until it realised that a single student was still boarding the train every school-day morning and alighting every evening. They even adjusted the train’s timetable according to the girl’s schedule. For the past three years, trains have stopped at the station only for her.
Only two trains make a stop at this lonely station.
This is what Japan does to ensure the girls education, no wonder they are world leaders. “Every citizen matters. No Child left behind!”
For a country like India, with scores of people travelling on trains every day, it’s probably unthinkable that a train would carry only one passenger.
▼ A copy of the original Japanese story (top right), from the Asahi Shimbun on 7 January 2015, has been posted on the bulletin board inside the rural station in Hokkaido.
According to CITYLAB, Japan faces a number of crises, with record-low birthrates, aging population and the possibility of losing a third of its population by 2060, which have all been contributing factors that have hit the country’s railroad system.
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Hokkaido, the most northerly of Japan’s four main islands, has had services on 20 railway lines halted in recent years.
