Over the past 5 years year there has been 14,000 incidences of trespassing and misuse on Queensland Rail tracks and 2,466 near misses when trespassing. Many of these incidences were school-aged kids putting their lives at risk by not obeying the rules and taking short cuts.

The learnings from research showed teens think they’re invincible and don’t need to listen. As a result Queensland Rail's current safety messages just aren’t cutting through. Queensland Rail wanted to update their rail safety education presentations and resources for schools in order to better connect with teenage school kids ann ultimately engage them with the message.

At the heart of this work was a need to grab teens attention and get them to rethink their current behaviour around railway tracks by stopping them from trespassing. Specifically the goal was to gain positive audience response to Educators during live presentations.

We brought to life the real teen stories that we co-created with teenagers through a series of story workshops. These stories were then expressed in a Frank Miller noir hardcover comic book that was then, in turn, Brough to life in a short film.

This film, this tragic story, is then screened to 400,000 students across Australia's largest state (Queensland) in an assembly experience that has never happened before in our country.

It's a first in so many ways. And one we expect to save lives.

It is too early in the life of this work to have a measure on any significant behaviour change with the audience. A key measure for this work was to gain positive audience response to Educators during live presentations and positive feedback from session coordinators and students.

The video received universal positive sentiment by way of the following quotes:

“I like the fact it’s confronting and it’d be good for 10s/11s/12s (high school students) to scare them a bit more… it would hit home. It could happen to my friends.”

“I like the pace of it. It’s slow and it makes it sync in - what’s being said. It’s relatable…”

“Imagine if your best friend was hit by a train. Wouldn’t you want to slow down? Because of them rushing they’ll never see their friend again. This is a serious thing that people need to pay attention to.”