When I was a child, I and my sisters walked or bicycled to & from school from kindergarten on. When I was 15 and my sister was 11, we moved 200 miles to a new town. My sister desperately missed her best friend, so my mother taught her how to get from our new town to her friend's town by train; like Mr. Crook, mom went with her until she was sure my sister could do it alone. My mother took her to the train station; she changed trains in Chicago, and her friend & her friend's parents were waiting at the train station when she arrived. She made the trip several times and did fine.