For families of the crew of the Russian nuclear submarine, the train trip from the city of Kursk in central Russia to Murmansk was a rattling, fatiguing journey from hope to despair.
The trip took two days, and the train arrived one week after the catastrophic accident that sent the vessel, named after their home town, to the ocean floor.
When Mrs Nadezhda Shelapenina left Kursk she felt hopeful that, by the time the train pulled into Murmansk early on Saturday afternoon, her son Alexei would be waiting joyfully to meet her.
"I've only one hope now. I'm only waiting for the moment when my son is rescued. Nothing else interests me," she said quietly as the train crossed a polar landscape of low stunted birches and rocky outcrops shortly before entering Mur mansk.
In fact, the navy had given up hope two days earlier. Its commercial department had received an order to obtain 80 coffins, 150 plastic body bags and 500 yards of red cloth, used to line military coffins according to the Murmansk editor of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Mr Vladimir Mamontov, who spoke to staff at the department.
He said the navy had other coffins in reserve for the entire crew. Mr Gleb Lyachin, the son of the Kursk's commander, Capt Gennady Lyachin, said "It's extremely difficult to talk about this, and it is by far the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. We've concentrated only on one thing. We're waiting for our father to come back," he said.
However, Mrs Sofia Vesilova (67) was certain that her grandson, Sergei Yerakhtin (22), a senior lieutenant on the Kursk, had perished. He has a wife and a one-year-old daughter.
"It's a terrible tragedy for the entire family. We have never experienced a shock of this kind in our lives," she said.
Meanwhile, there was grief, denial and frustration in Vidyay
evo, the closed military town where many of the officers of the Kursk lived and where families of other crewmen were taken. Many were furious at a rescue operation they felt was botched.
Nikolai Konyashkin (43), a senior sub-lieutenant in the navy who knew most of the Kursk's officers, said most people there were "in a very heavy mood".
"We feel very sombre. Our hearts ache for our friends on the Kursk as if they are our relatives.
"We could hope for a miracle, but it's not the submariners' style. We're taught to rely on people," he said.
"When I look at our life here and the conditions of service, I feel disgusted."
Mrs Valentina Aveleni, from Lithuania, mother of the Kursk's cook, bitterly condemned Russia's authorities for turning down foreign assistance, and blamed President Putin.
"A citizen is always tried for high treason. But what should be done to a motherland that betrays its own citizens? Who needs a motherland like that?" she said.
"It's a nightmare that Putin was on holiday in Sochi while my son and his mates have been fighting for their lives."