Figure 1.-- This boy is waiting at York train station with his mother for the train to his boarding school. Notice his suit case. I'm not sure when this photograph was taken. He certainly attens a boarding school in the country. Weare not sure if it is a prep school or a public school.

School children became very familar with trains. This was especially the case in Europe. Many school children travel to school on trains. This is the case both for children attending boarding school as well as commuters attending day schools. We have no time line a to when boys began using trains to travel to school. The famous school book Tom Browns School Days suggests that trains were not yet used to travel to boardinf schoolsin the 1850s. We suspect this may have begun in the 1860s, certainly by the 1870. Trains were being widely used by the 1880s and continued to be so through World War II. Most of the children evacuated by the British during the war were evacuated by train. We suspect the same is true of the German evacuation program, but have lessinformation about it. This continued to be the case after the War, but privately owned cars and busses became incresingly important. Planes tend to be used for long distance travel. Even so, trains continue to be widely used even today. This is much more so in Europe than in America. The train is a widely used passanger service in Europe while in America it is primarily used for freight. We are quite familar with the British rail system, but other European countries also have excllent systems as do the Japanese.

Created: January 4, 2004
Last updated: January 4, 2004