A passenger on a German high-speed train who was avoiding a ticket ended up clinging to the outside as it pulled out of a station before he was ready to get on, police say.
A 40-year-old man boarded an ICE train in Munich without a valid ticket and wanted to take a smoke break at the station in Ingolstadt.
But he lingered over his cigarette too long and the train doors closed, leaving him in the prospect of being stranded.
He then jumped onto a girder between two carriages and held on to the cables as the train hurtled toward Nuremberg at speeds of up to 282 km/h (175 mph), until federal police stopped him about 30 km away.
Witnesses alerted officers, who contacted the train driver, who made an unplanned stop in Kinding in Upper Bavaria. The intercity express was on a six-hour journey to the northern city of Lübeck.
The man, a Hungarian citizen, told the police that he had left his luggage on the train during a cigarette break and that he did not want to part with it.
He was “amazingly” unharmed after his daring drive, a police spokesman said.
“A state police officer who happened to be traveling on the train found the 40-year-old Hungarian ‘passenger’ and brought him onto the train,” the spokesman said, adding that he was handed over to federal police at Nuremberg Central Station.
The man is now being investigated for fraud.
A criminal complaint is also expected for “obstructing business”, which is qualified as a mere administrative offense.
Federal police have warned citizens not to risk their lives on German trains.
