It is said that the only stupid questions are the ones left unasked. Try telling that to the man arrested in Texas last week after radioing a Union Pacific crew and asking how to release the brakes on the parked train he was attempting to steal.

The Wednesday incident in Egan, south of Fort Worth, had railroad and law enforcement officials scratching their heads.

“This is unique. It isn’t the first time someone tried to take off with one of our trains,” UP spokesman John Bromley said. “It is, however, the first time they asked for help.”

"On Oct. 1, I'll have 32 years in law enforcement, and I thought I had put somebody in jail for every offense, but this is the first time I ever had someone who tried to steal a train," Johnson County Sheriff Bob Alford told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The suspect, 22-year-old Kristopher Huie of Everman, Texas, was charged with attempted theft greater than $200,000. Huie found the 107-car grain train idling on a siding in Egan. He boarded it and released the engine brakes. But when he was unable to release the train brakes, he radioed the crew of an oncoming train and asked for help.

The crew – engineer Craig Smith and conductor Kenneth Corley – stopped their train, notified dispatchers in Omaha, Neb., and held Huie until police arrived.

"I asked him where he was going, and he said, 'To visit friends and relatives,' " Alford told the Star-Telegram. "I asked him where, and he said, 'Everywhere,' so I said, 'Specifically, where were you intending to go?,' and he said, 'Wherever the train went.’”