A nine-year-old boy is in hospital after trying to hop onto a moving freight train in Calgary.

The incident happened just after noon Wednesday in Dover, near Hubalta Road SE, according to Calgary's Emergency Medical Services.

A child plays on the railway tracks near Hubalta Road on Wednesday, shortly after another child was injured while trying to hop onto a train.
(CBC)

Peter Alphonse, 9, told CBC News he asked his friend not to try the stunt and ran home when his advice was ignored.

"I rushed back to my house to call the ambulance," he said. "He panicked so I came back to him. I brought him a cloth or something so it would stop bleeding."

Paramedics arrived and provided advanced life support at the scene before taking the boy to Alberta Children's Hospital with serious leg injuries. His condition isn't considered life-threatening, according to EMS.

People in the neighbourhood said children are constantly trying to hop trains and use a hole in a fence to get close to the CN Rail tracks.

Taylor Oiumette said many older boys ride the trains from the nearby town homes to 52nd Street.

"You see them like just about every day, just running around on the tracks, and plenty of people have called the police and nobody showed up or anything."

Christine Vanderweed, property manager for some townhouses near the tracks, said she spends up to four hours every day policing the hole.

She said she has called police about children jumping trains and transients drinking in the field beside the tracks, but no one has responded.

Vanderweed hopes the incident will prompt the owner of the fence to finally repair it.

Kevin Franchuk, a spokesman for the railway, said CN doesn't own the fence.

"The issue here is not the fence, but rather trespassing. They are crossing within a kilometre from where this occurred. So people, especially children, should not go anywhere near trains or railway equipment. They put themselves at peril."

Calgary police say they are looking into complaints that calls about people on the tracks went unanswered.