A video out of Fairport has been making the rounds online, and if you’ve seen it, you probably felt your stomach drop a little. It shows a group of young teens dancing on railroad tracks as a train barrels toward them, with one kid sprinting across just seconds before it passes. It’s the kind of clip that makes you want to reach through the screen and pull them back yourself.
Fairport Police Chief Andrew Whitaker confirmed his department identified the kids involved, who are reportedly around 12 and 13 years old. Rather than treating this as a criminal matter, the department took a different approach, working with CSX railroad officers to make sure the message landed where it mattered most: at home, with the parents.
For those unfamiliar with the area, Fairport is a small village near Rochester, New York, and railroad crossings run right through the heart of town. That makes this story feel especially close to home for longtime residents who’ve grown up watching trains roll through without a second thought. Seeing kids treat those same tracks like a playground is enough to rattle anyone who understands just how quickly things could have gone wrong.
Police say there won’t be criminal charges, reported News 8 WROC, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences. The department made it clear that handling this the right way meant getting parents involved directly rather than putting kids through the court system for what was, thankfully, a close call and not a tragedy.
How Police Identified the Teens
Chief Whitaker explained that once the video started circulating, his department leaned on its relationship with CSX railroad officers, since the tracks are technically CSX property. Working together, they were able to identify the teens and pass that information along so CSX officers could follow up directly with families.
Rather than showing up with tickets in hand, CSX officers visited the kids’ homes with a simple goal: make sure both the teens and their parents understood exactly how dangerous this stunt really was. According to Whitaker, the response from families was positive, with parents grateful to be informed and clearly taking the matter seriously themselves.
Why Train Safety Still Catches People Off Guard
Trains are a lot harder to stop than most people assume. Even a slow-moving freight train can take well over a mile to come to a complete stop once the brakes are applied, which means “outrunning” one is a gamble with almost no margin for error. Watching the video, it’s clear just how close the situation came to a very different outcome.
This isn’t the first time a viral stunt has put kids in the crosshairs of moving trains, and it likely won’t be the last. But hopefully this case, along with the direct conversation between CSX and these families, sticks with the teens involved a little longer than the views on their video did.