Advertisement

High-speed train surfer arrested after being caught on camera

By Ben Hooper
Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter

Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Authorities in Australia said they arrested a man caught on camera clinging to the back of a speeding train ext to a major road.

A video captured by Chantelle Stone and posted to Facebook shows a man holding onto the back of a speeding commuter train Saturday as it traverses the tracks next to the Mitchell Freeway in Perth, Western Australia.

Advertisement

"The train had been stopped at a station when we first saw the guy riding on the back," Stone said. "We slowed down a bit so the train could get ahead of us again so I could capture the footage."

Stone estimated the train, which originated at the Leederville Station, was going about 70 mph.

The Public Transport Authority said the incident could have turned deadly.

"He was clinging on to a windscreen wiper -- were he to fall it's a very unfriendly and unreceptive surface with ballast and rail and concrete sleepers, he would have almost certainly been killed, if not badly injured," PTA spokesman David Hynes told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

PTA officials monitoring CCTV cameras watched the man get down from his perch at the Glendalough Station and get inside the train. He was detained at the next stop, Stirling Station, and authorities said he could face trespassing charges.

Advertisement

Hynes said the incident marked the first time the PTA has caught someone in the act of train surfing.

"This is the first time in the memory of anyone at the PTA that we've actually known about it while it was happening," he said.

Latest Headlines