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Cats on the Underground

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pitdiver

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Back in 89 I worked at Barbican LUL. We had a station cat that would spend his sleeping days on the ticket gates. He also had a proper bed in the Stn Suppervisor's office.
He was extremely popular with the passengers some of whom would buy him food.
I can assure you he was well looked after and well thought of by staff and passengers.
 
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ChiefPlanner

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Back in 89 I worked at Barbican LUL. We had a station cat that would spend his sleeping days on the ticket gates. He also had a proper bed in the Stn Suppervisor's office.
He was extremely popular with the passengers some of whom would buy him food.
I can assure you he was well looked after and well thought of by staff and passengers.

There were a few on the NYC subway one gathers , who were looked after by staff and passengers.
 

hwl

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Seen dead foxes in SE land too. Also seen them cross the tracks carefully not to step on anything. There seem to be some hot-spots on bankings and some complicated junctions where they cant figure out what is going on. -- neither can I!!

The rats ate all the mice! ;)
Dad once had a sticky trap near the mice's favorite entry point to the garden shed, one day he left a mouse on the trap to deal with after the mouse had passed away. Came back the next day, the trap was 6' away and all that was left was the remains of a rats tail struck to it. Rat got mouse and fox got rat!
 

contrex

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I would imagine like high voltage electric pylons the current flow gives off a humming sound, electricity behaves like water it flows through conducting materials, like streams over shingles and rocks, I would imagine at a lower voltage it would give off a particular sound that's outside of our hearing range but the cats would hear and they don't like the noise so they avoid it.
High voltage AC conductors may hum because of corona discharge, and the transformers have a steel core that vibrates at 50 cycles a second. Apart from that, electricity runs through conductors in complete silence.

I found a story in the Bournemouth Echo about a dog electrocuted at Poole - "Call for action after dog is electrocuted on railway line" where the owner said "The gates on the entrance to Walking Field Lane do not display any danger warning signs." This made me think of Mr Jingle's wonderful dog -

Ah! you should keep dogs - fine animals - sagacious creatures - dog of my own once - a pointer - surprising instinct - out shooting one day - entering inclosure - whistled - dog stopped - whistled again - Ponto - no go; stock still - called him - Ponto, Ponto - wouldn't move - dog transfixed - staring at a board - looked up, saw an inscription -"Gamekeeper has orders to shoot all dogs found in this inclosure" - so he wouldn't pass it - wonderful dog - valuable dog that - very.'
 
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Lucan

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Didn't Baker Street once have some stuffed animals in glass cases on the platforms, which were some of the less mangled ones found dead on the outer parts of the Metropolitan? Foxes and badgers I believe, but I doubt they included cats or dogs. That was probably in the early 20th century.
 
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Quite often there's stories of people's animals ending up in the tunnels, they find their way in somehow and squeeze next to the negative rail or the running rail or more to the side depending on the tunnel. Quite often come out shaken up but generally alive.

Recently was a story of a dog running round the Edgware road area and kept popping up all over and somehow ended up on the way towards Finchley road. Kept avoiding all the staff. It was quite an entertaining read!

East Acton also has a couple of cats that pop in now and then and chills. Both owned, they're just on a wonder
 

Dr_Paul

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Years back, my dad slipped over on the stairs at Tottenham Court Road station and cut his knee. He was taken by a staff member to an office in one of the old lift-shafts to report the accident, and there was a cat sitting in a paper-tray on a desk, very much at home.
 
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