‘Urbex’ underbelly adrenalin junkies off the rails

NSW Police is warning parents about the dangers of their children becoming “Urbex” or “Panel Kickers”.

An urbex image by photographer Tim Frawley taken at the carpark for the former Balmain Leagues Club.

The growing numbers of adren­alin junkies and graffiti artists who trespass on the rail network running underneath Sydney are taking part in a form of “natural selection”, says an experienced “urban explorer”.

In recent days, NSW police have posted several online warnings to parents as part of Operation Damage about the dangers of their children becoming “Urbex or Panel Kickers”.

An Urbex is an urban explorer, someone who enjoys going to abandoned or rundown urban structures, often attracted by photographic potential of the sites.

The police post listed potential warning signs for parents: children dressing for the demanding, illicit exploration of the city’s ­industrial underground or with a DSLR camera, a GoPro and SD memory cards. “This operation targets the dangerous practice of young people trespassing in the rail corridor and other restricted areas within the rail network,” the post said.

At least one such urban explorer and graffiti artist has bragged in a closed Facebook group about having a “boundary key” to the Sydney rail tunnel ­network.

In response to a post asking if anyone in the group had been in a “commonly trespassed” rail corridor, the man said he was likely partly to blame as the people who went down there were “quite young” and had asked his advice; he had been down there “about 14 times”. The original poster said the area — around St James station in the CBD — was no longer accessible, but the man replied: “Funny that I was actually in there a few days ago nice new cameras particularly loving the easily by-passable motion sensor activated ones.”

Asked if he had a boundary key, provided to train crew, maintenance staff, suppliers, contractors and emergency service personnel to unlock gates to ­access the rail corridor, he said: “Sure do.”

Sydney Trains director of ­operations Tony Eid said records showed an average of 16 keys of all types were lost or stolen each year.

The Weekend Australian spoke to urban explorer Jacob Perrott, who said people who ran through the rail corridor were not repre­sentative of the wider urban ­explorer community. “It’s stupid. If a train comes, you have nowhere to go,” he said. “It’s sort of like that natural selection thing — is it ­really worth that much risk to take a picture of a tunnel?”

Mr Perrott said he knew urban exploring could involve trespas­sing, but that was the extent of ­illegal activity most people in the community participated in.

Fellow urban explorer Tim Frawley said such activity could be done legally.

“Going into active train tunnels or trespassing on to private property would fall under the ­illegal category, while stumbling across some old trains or buildings in the bush or on rural roads with nothing around, I wouldn’t think is illegal,” he said.