Poster, 'Starsky & Hutch, Stay off the line and stay alive!'

Poster, British Railways, Starsky and Hutch, Stay Off the Line and Stay Alive!', 1977. Coloured lithograph depicting a graphic storyboard featuring the fictional television detectives, Starsky and Hutch, rescuing a boy injured while playing on railway lines. Published by the British Railways Board and printed by Impress (Acton) Ltd. Format: Double Crown: 20 x 30 inches, 505 x 760mm. British Rail poster serial 4337/377.

A British Rail safety poster, 'Stay off the line and stay alive!', published in 1977 and intended to discourage children from trespassing on railway lines. It features the fictional US police detectives, David Starsky and 'Hutch' Hutchinson, played by Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul.

'Starsky and Hutch', filmed by Spelling Goldberg Productions between 1975 and 1979 and broadcast in the USA and internationally, was shown in the UK on Saturday evenings in the late 1970s on the BBC1 television channel.

The comic strip features a story about Starsky and Hutch discovering an injured boy on a railway line while carrying out surveillance on criminals planning to hijack an intercity train. The detectives kill the hijackers in a shootout and, almost incidentally, rescue the boy in the penultimate frame. The story ends with Starsky and Hutch warning that the consequences of trespassing on the railway could be death or serious injury and that the police have more important things to do than "play nursemaid to a bunch of stupid kids"!

The poster was published by the British Railway Board and printed by Impress (Acton) Ltd.