A ROADSHOW designed to teach children about the dangers of trespassing on the railways has been hailed a big success.

About 1,500 children took part in two days of activities No Messin' Live and organisers said they had been polite and well-behaved.

No Messin' saw youngsters trying activities including rock climbing, wrestling, motorbiking and skateboarding in Darlington's Market Place and Dolphin Centre.

The town was selected as one of four places in the country which was a rail crime hotspot. The others were Hull, Eastbourne and Slough - No Messin' Live roadshows were also held in these locations this summer.

Ian Chapman, of Network Rail, which staged the event, said: "This has been the biggest of the events and we have reached more of our target age group.

"They have been really polite, far more polite than elsewhere and they have been grateful. It has been a major success."

Children were asked to answer questions about rail safety to be entered into prize draws and were also given T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts and other items to drive home the message.

One of the biggest hits of the roadshow has been Oscar, a human-sized robot. Oscar interacted with children, answered their questions, amazed them with his observations and spoke to them about rail safety.

Mr Chapman said: "Youngsters will listen to messages from Oscar because he has an air of mystery, he captures their imagination as they try to figure out how he works."

Jonathan Hakin, 15, from Darlington, said: "Oscar is really cool. I also liked the motorbiking, you get to do different tricks, it was fun.