Stop & Examine

With so many train poems, amusing station announcements and suspect information screens to squeeze in, poor Percy has been waiting patiently for his moment in the Stop

& Examine spotlight for some weeks now. So it’s thanks to Paul Martin, Duty Manager at Dartmoor Railway, for supplying these pictures of Percy - the official Pest Controller at Okehampton station who has been living in the signal box there for a year.

Percy was found as a stray living on Devon’s south coast, and in quite a poor condition. After being rescued and cared for at Mitzi’s Cat Connect in Totnes, he was adopted by the Dartmoor Railway team and named Percy after a Thomas the Tank Engine character.

He has his own Facebook page and is very popular with all visitors, reports Paul.

While on the subject of stations cats, time to call in again at Huddersfield station, where Felix (our favourite Senior Pest Controller) has been gaining a reputation as a football pundit.

TransPennine Express staff there set up an experiment to mark newly promoted Huddersfield Town FC’s first three matches in the Premier League. They laid down bowls of food - one labelled with the badge of Huddersfield, one with the badge of their opponents, and one labelled ‘draw’.

All three times Fel ix chose the ‘ Huddersfield’ option, and on the first two occasions Huddersfield did indeed go on to win the match. But on August 26, her prediction skills hit the buffers when Huddersfield drew 0-0 with Southampton.

Not enough to rival Paul the Octopus, who famously ‘correctly predicted’ 12 out of 14 results for Germany at two major football tournaments. But two out of three ain’t bad!

More station cats please. Send in your pictures to rail@ bauermedia.co.uk