Curiosity almost killed the cat - on the roof of a 125mph train bound for Milton Keynes

Wide-eyed and terrified, the cat was seen curled up on top of a 125mph Avanti West Coast Pendolino train stationed on a platform at London Euston station last night.

Facing an extremely dangerous situation, fortunately the misplaced moggy was seen before the train was meant to set off at 9pm.

To rescue the cat, the train was taken out of service and another one made available for passengers to continue their journey - with only a slight delay.

In total it took two and a half hours to coax the intrepid tabby down to safety, away from the 25,000 volt overhead lines which power trains.

Eventually a bin was pulled up beside the carriages to give the scared cat its own special platform on which to disembark.

Joe Hendry, Network Rail station manager for Euston, said: “We often have to deal with birds inside the station but in all my time here this is the first train surfing cat! Thankfully curiosity didn’t kill this cat and we're glad it avoided using up one of its nine lives thanks to the swift action of the station team and Avanti West Coast staff who organised for passengers to get onto a different train for the rescue to take place.”

Kathryn Pranga-Wells, lead station manager for Avanti West Coast, said: “The things some pets do to avoid lockdown. Thankfully we managed to avoid a cat-astrophe but don’t ask me-ow the cat got up there.”

It’s not known how the frightened feline came to be on top of the high-speed train.

Seemingly the entire caper left the trainspotting tabby cat rather unfussed, with station staff describing it ‘swaggering off’ with a sense of somewhere else to be after its 180-minute brush with danger.