SHANGHAI, Oct. 12 -- A 19-YEAR-OLD man, who decided to sit on railway tracks to test his quick response when a train approached, was saved from being crushed by a cargo train yesterday afternoon thanks to the train driver who spotted him and hit the brakes just in time, railway police said yesterday.

Police said the young man, a Chongqing city native surnamed Gou, was unhurt as the train stopped just meters away from where he sat firmly on the rails.

"He sat on the rail steadily and firmly, giving no attention to the continuous sirens at all," recalled the train driver.

The train driver and rail police said they assumed he was trying to commit suicide when they saw him sitting like a statue on the rail tracks.

The man says, however, that he was just curios about his reactions. He told the police that he had never closely observed a train or rail tracks before he moved Shanghai's Fengxian District this April.

The curious man travelled from Fengxian District to Minhang District yesterday just to take a close look at the rails and trains.

When he was sitting on the tracks to wait for a train, he suddenly decided he should test himself to see if he could react quickly enough to an approaching train. When he saw the train approaching, he held his position determined to wait until the last possible second to jump out of the way.

"It's a 31-carriage train, so the vehicle might still glide for another 10 meters after the emergency brakes are hit. If not for the good weather that provided me with good visibility to spot him in time, he could have been hit easily," said the train driver.

The man was released by railway police after being warned about the danger of sitting on railway lines.