YOUNGSTERS in one of the region's most isolated areas could soon be doing their homework in a mobile classroom - a train.

About 200 children who live in North Yorkshire's Esk Valley use the Northern Spirit train between Middlesbrough and Whitby to get to school.

Some of the youngsters in remote areas, such as Westerdale and Fryupdale, leave home at 7am to get a taxi to the nearest train station for the rail journey to Eskdale School, Caedmon School, and Whitby Community College, all in Whitby.

Now a £15,000 scheme to turn a train carriage into a mobile classroom has been launched.

The project will see the carriage equipped with four laptop computers and sockets for further computers, as well as a teacher on hand to help the children do their homework.

Rob Plackett, of Eskdale School, said: "It is enabling the children to use that time, which is often dead time, to help alleviate some of the difficulties they have."

Mr Plackett said lengthy travelling took its toll on the pupils.

"Commuting for an hour and a half on a daily basis is a very grown up and mature thing to do, and they are only 11," he said. The scheme was likely to take a couple of years to set up.