Fare-Dodger Of The Week

A 40-year-old man boarded an ICE train travelling to the northern German city of Lübeck at Munich station recently without a valid ticket. When the train arrived at Ingolstadt, he popped on to the station platform for a crafty fag, only to find that the carriage doors had closed and the train was about to set off again to Nuremburg.

Realising that his luggage was on board, he jumped on to a bracket between two carriages and held on to cables for dear life as the train reached speeds of 175mph. Witnesses alerted officials to what had happened and the train made an unscheduled stop at Kinding.

Despite travelling for twenty miles in such a precarious position at such speeds, the man was none the worse for his ordeal but is expected to face charges for an “act disruptive to operations”, an administrative offence.

That’s a journey he will not forget in a hurry.