For three years, a train stopped every school morning at a tiny station in the forests of Hokkaido, Japan. Only one person got on there: a high school girl on her way to class.
Kyu-Shirataki Station. Winter, 2015.
The forest is white. Beside the single track stand a small waiting shelter and a short platform. One student waits there, alone, as she does every school morning.
A train comes through the trees, slows and stops here for her. The door opens. She steps on, and the train pulls away toward her school.
She is the only person who uses this station every day. Almost no one else needs it anymore.
The railway has decided to close it. But the closing date has been set for March 2016.
That is the month she will graduate.
Soon, people around the world would be sharing her story. They would call Kyu-Shirataki the station that waited for one student.