OXFORD – Four teenage boys from Mechanic Falls hopped onto a moving St. Lawrence & Atlantic freight train in Mechanic Falls about 7 p.m. Thursday and jumped off in Oxford, where three of them were later caught by police, Patrolman Alan Coffin said.

The 16-year-olds were “‘just having fun,'” Coffin said they told him.

“It turned out to be an expensive ride for them,” he added.

Three were charged with criminal trespass and turned over to their parents, and the fourth was still being sought.

Coffin said the boy jumped off the train in the area of Oxford Street near the Paris town line.

An unidentified person called 911 to report the incident, Coffin said, and a dispatcher notified Paris police and St. Lawrence & Atlantic officials, which stopped the train in Paris.

One boy was taken into custody in Paris by Norway police officer Harry Sims; two others were picked up near Crystal Spring Farm on Route 26 in Oxford, Coffin said.

They were charged and turned over to their parents with summonses to appear in juvenile court in Paris on Aug. 16, he said.

“The train was moving” when they hopped aboard and when they leapt off, Coffin said. “They were not hurt at all.”

It was unknown how fast the train was going at the times the boys got on and off.

The train engineer didn’t know they had hitched a ride, Coffin said.

– Mary Delamater