Stray Cat Perched Atop High Speed Train Delays Passengers

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For those who must make the travel to work each day, public transport and the schedules to follow can be quite daunting. Delays from any number of things can put your entire day “behind”. And there’s nothing you can do about it usually. Patience must be tapped and tongues bitten to stop the frustration. When locals were informed that there was a delay on their Avanti West Coast train at London Euston on Tuesday morning, they braced themselves for the bad news. But when a cat is the cause of your delay, what can you do?

Because it was a tiny “moggy” or cat, that was perched atop the high speed train delaying passengers for 2 hours.

No one knows how the cat even made it up on the precarious perch. And the workers knew that it was NOT a safe place for it to be. So when the unhelpful and disgusting suggestions on how to get the cat down began, they were quick to squash the “help”.

“Just use a water hose.”

“Wouldn’t last long at 120 MPH”

“Decent sniper could of sorted that out haha”

“2 hours to get that cat off the train lol, what kind of morons work for that train station lol”

And the response to the ignorant:

Well considering there is a 25,000 volt line with electricity going through it, the “morons” probably wanted to ensure they were safe and could go home at the end of their shift instead of getting electrocuted to remove a cat.

But animal abuse and horrible humans aside, there were more dangers the cat was facing than the uneducated could possibly know.

The orange line at roof height on trains is there for a reason. Anything above that and you’re in the ‘potentially being zapped’ zone. Railway OHLE voltage is 100 times greater than what is supplied to your house. It also has an operating cycle of 50 times a second, which means there’s 50 chances of getting electrocuted and 50 chances of being catapulted away.

With the train workers having the best interest of the cat in mind, the rescue was slow going but safe.

The cat was spotted about 30 minutes before the train was set to depart the station. But as cats go, you KNOW they are going to move at their own pace. Not to mention the feline was likely terrified at the attention. To break up the stress and tension though, track programmers found a bit of humor during the ordeal.

Passengers were eventually transferred to an alternate train so that the cat could make a peaceful departure. And once a bin was placed next to the train, the cat did what cats do.

It climbed down on it’s own, when it was darn well ready to.

Thankfully the cat wasn’t harmed at all and simply walked away after it’s disruptive adventure. I’m not going to ask WHY the cat wasn’t trapped and attempted to be rescued from the dangerous area. Hopefully there are cat lovers in the area that feed and care for this cat and any others calling the tracks home.

Joe Hendry, Network Rail station manager for Euston, told BBC.com;