New to Kalamazoo? What You Need to Know About the Infamous X-Train

Having grown up in nearby Allegan and recently moved back to the area after spending the last 7 years in the Heartland, I can honestly say I have never heard the words "X-Train" before. Do you know about this infamous Kalamazoo-based group?

Now that the town is thawing out and warmer weather is returning to West Michigan, so is the X-Train. The only reason this was first brought to my attention was a post on the local Kalamazoo subreddit where a user u/Flaac0 asked, "What happened in my parking lot?"

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The user goes on to describe a bizarre scenario where at around 2:00 a.m. on the morning of March 6, 2022 a group of between 30-50 cars started pouring into the parking lot of an apartment complex:

All sorts of cars, pulling into spots, pulling across the lawn. After about 5 to 10 minutes, they all started leaving. After about another 5 minutes, all the cars but one were gone (it had got stuck in the mud trying to drive across the lawn)...If I hadn’t seen the spot where the car got stuck in the lawn, I might have thought I had dreamed the whole thing.

Locals were quick to call out the X-Train!

What has been a problem in Kalamazoo since the '90s, the X-Train is a caravan of partiers and cars that drive bumper to bumper through the north side of town leaving a path of destruction in their wake. The X-Train, which takes their name from a popular club drug, has been known to rip up lawns, scatter trash and broken glass along the streets, and has been linked to at least one shooting death.

Authorities have made attempts to crack down on the X-Train's wild parties in recent years and arrested around 20 participants in 2017. Clearly the X-Train hasn't been derailed yet with this most recent sighting. However, many residents aren't even aware of its existence!

u/sloppifloppi said, "How...have I lived here my whole life and never heard about this?" while another added, "I've lived here almost 20 years, never seen it once. Only time I learned about it was from articles written on it."

Now that you know what it is, do you recall any encounters with the X-Train?