London Train Delayed Because…A Cat Wouldn’t Get Off

Cats love warm places to curl up on, which is why you might have had to shoo one off the hood of your car before. You might even have encountered a stubborn feline that took a bit more coaxing to get it off your car before you could start driving. Well, the same thing happened in London, sort of, except it was on a train that was meant to transport hundreds of passengers at 125 miles per hour.

The tabby cat was spotted at Euston station, at around 8.30pm local time, curled atop an Avanti West Coast train that was scheduled to leave for Manchester in 30 minutes. How the cat could have gotten up there is anyone’s guess.

As the departure time neared, the cat remained steadfast on the train, obviously terrified but also oblivious to the overhead lines that carry 25,000 volts of electricity to power the trains.

Eventually, a replacement train was brought out and passengers were transferred over, with only a slight delay to their journey. The initial train was taken out of service as staff continued to try to persuade the cat to alight.

Finally, after two and a half hours, someone pulled a bin alongside the carriage and the kitty used the elevated platform to disembark. See, all the kitty was doing was watching its step and minding the (large) gap between train roof and floor. According to observers, the animal then proceeded to”swagger off”, unaware of the trouble it had caused.

The Network Rail station manager for Euston, Joe Hendry, said that they were used to dealing with birds inside the station but it was the first time he had to deal with a “train-surfing cat”.

Cue cat puns, which we avoided putting in the headlines, but we just have to:

Major Cat-astrophe Avoided!

Stuck on Train; Cat-atonic with Fear.

Cat on a Hot Train Roof  Almost Electrocuted. 

Glad the cat is okay!