Kick, Salman Khan’s latest film, is yet another in his long list of masala movies that are three parts action to one part plot. But one scene has got Mumbai’s Railway Protection Force worried enough to ask  the Censor Board to have it cut out.

The sequence, starting at 0:20 above, shows Khan riding furiously on a bicycle to escape the police. As he comes across a railway track, he jumps off, flings his bike ahead of him and strolls across the track – avoiding an oncoming train by inches.

Given that his fans  believe that Salman Khan can do no wrong and is their ultimate inspiration, the concerns of the Railway Protection Force that this scene might inspire copycat artists is legitimate.

This is not the first time that Mumbai's RPF has responded to a YouTube video. After a 2011 video showing boys casually swinging by their fingertips from a Harbour Line train and slapping passing poles, the RPF began a concerted campaign to thwart aspiring stunt artists. They arrested over 100 teenagers in just five days, and summoned the parents of those who were minors.



That did little to stop the stunt riders. In 2013, a 14-year-old performing similar tricks while being surreptitiously filmed was struck by a pole and fell off the train. He did not survive. (The video is here; it is only for those with nerves of steel as you wait for the inevitable, tragic fall.)

Fortunately, Salman Khan is not as big a deal in South Africa, where teenagers are similarly inspired. Late last year, Italian photographer Marco Casino travelled to South Africa to film this short documentary, Staff Riders, about teenagers near Johannesburg who perform an activity they call staff riding. It involves scraping their feet along the ground as their cling to the outside of a train with just their hands.



Train surfing, Casino says, is a popular sport among the country's poor teenagers, and is a distraction from the potent mix of desperation and boredom. And they certainly do seem to be having fun as they saunter on top of train carriages, ducking every few seconds to avoid passing poles. Many lose their limbs – and lives – in the bargain.

Thousands of other Mumbaikars perform a less flamboyant version of train surfing every day because it is their only way to get to work on time. At peak hour, scores of commuters cling to the outside of each compartment because each nine- or 12-car train with a capacity of only 1,700 actually carries more than 4,500 passengers. On average, two passengers slip to their deaths every day or are killed because they fail to lean back to avoid being hit by electrical poles along their journey.

Some daredevils attempt to escape the congestion by riding atop the carriages, even though the high voltage in the overhead electricity lines means instant death for anyone in a two-metre radius of them. The Railway Police detained 1,904 commuters for rooftop travel in the first five months of 2012, the period for which figures are last available, up 36% from the corresponding period the previous year.

To bring down the casualties, railway authorities have even removed the rudimentary ladders affixed to carriages to allow maintenance staff to inspect the compartment roofs. "We have decided to make use of a portable ladder in case of any emergency," a railway spokesman said.

According to the rules, a passenger "travelling dangerously" on a Mumbai local train can be fined Rs 500, or sent to prison for three months, or both.