The work of six local children has been celebrated in a national competition to help promote rail safety.
Benjamin aged 8, and Klara aged 12, from Darlington, designed this year’s winning graphics aimed at helping other young people understand the dangers of trespassing on our railways. Alex, Matilda and Oliver from Darlington Cubs, joined Charity from a Darlington secondary school to take four of the runners up places in the Backtrack Competition.
Backtrack is a national anti-trespass competition, launched during covid to help tackle the rising number of trespass incidents on the railways. In its fifth year, the competition ran from September 2024 to March 2025 and attracted over 1,000 entries from across the UK. The Backtrack competition aims to reduce the amount of railway trespass by encouraging young people to share important anti-trespass messages with their friends and family.
Entrants were invited to submit either a social media graphic depicting a rail safety message or a media entry such as an animation, a podcast, a TV advert or a news report.
The entries from the Darlington and South Durham area were of a very high standard and showed some amazing creativity. Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership has been delivering rail education sessions in nurseries, schools, colleges and youth groups and this has attracted over 200 of this year’s entries, including some fantastic graphics and animations which highlight the key risks of trespassing.
All the winning entries have been compiled into a video, which is available at https://backtrackcompetition.co.uk/
All the work from the winners and runners up will be used by the many community rail officers across the country when they visit schools and youth groups to talk about rail safety. And each winning entry will be played on social media too. Lots of opportunities to continue to share the #StayOffTheTracks message.
Virtual Education Network Chair Karen Bennett commented, “This year’s entries are fantastic, we had such a hard job choosing the winners as there was such a high standard. We’re so pleased the young people created such a diverse range of entries including illustrations, comic strips, animations and podcasts and even a rap. Young people are far more likely to take notice of an animation, or a video created by their peers than something more corporate, so we are delighted to have such a vibrant collection of of high quality resources to share with all our colleagues right across the rail industry”.
Well done to everyone who entered, watch out for the Backtrack Competition 2026 – we’ll be back!
Winners:
Under 11 Graphics Winner – Benjamin, Darlington
12 and over Graphics Winner – Klara, Darlington
Under 11 Media Winners – Amilie, Freddie, Betsy, Emelia, Ollie, Cara – Primary School Junior Road Safety Officers, Petersfield
12 and over Media Winners – Emily, Maddison, Amelia, Boeima, Hull
Runners up:
Under 11 Media Runner Up – Alex, Darlington Cubs
Under 11 Media Runner Up – Amazon Cubs, Farsley
Under 11 Graphics Runner Up – Matilda, Darlington Cubs
Under 11 Graphics Runner Up – Oliver, Darlington Cubs
Under 11 Graphic Runner Up – Thea Proudfoot, York
12 and over Graphics Runner Up – Charity, Darlington
12 and over Graphics Runner Up – Papa – West Lothian Scouts
