Two teenagers killed train surfing after hitting signal bridge

Two teenage boys died in a train accident in Berlin after they hit a signal bridge while “train surfing”.

The 17-year-old and 18-year-old, who have not yet been named, were joyriding on the roof of the S1 train around 5:20am on Sunday when they collided with a steel structure, according to police.

The train was travelling at approximately 60 kilometres per hour between the stops Schlachtensee and Wannsee when the fatal incident occurred. No further details have been released by the police regarding the incident.

According to German media outlet BILD, the local fire department was notified of an incident at 5:24am, and one of the teenagers died upon impact while the other died moments later.

Witnesses said that the 17-year-old’s gym membership card was found at the scene, as well as some of his clothes.

Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Michael Klein issued a warning to German media outlet RBB on Sunday, stating that trains are not playgrounds and appealed for people to refrain from such activities.

Train surfing has gained popularity among young people in recent years, largely due to the rise of thrill-seeker content on social media.

Berlin’s transport authorities previously condemned S-Bahn surfing in 2019 when it had become a craze on YouTube, calling it “suicidal”.

And a teenage girl was killed and another was injured after being run over by a train while subway surfing in New York in October last year.

The two girls were on top of a southbound train at the 111th Street station in Corona, a neighborhood of Queens, when they fell onto the tracks, in between the cars, and were struck.

Police said that one girl, around 13 or 14, was declared dead at the scene while the other, 12, was left severely injured, the MTA New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said.