'He could easily have ended up at Piccadilly': The cat who left home and got on the train to Manchester by himself

There’s nothing Lenny the seven-year-old cat loves more than being fussed by morning commuters.

The moggy is known to spend time at train stations around High Peak and enjoys cuddling with workers before they leave for the office.

But while they love letting him explore, his owners James and Laura Stockton feared he might actually end up on a train one day.

READ MORE: Dad-of-two thought he'd just pulled a muscle... then doctors said there was nothing they could do to save him

READ MORE: 'My itchy skin turned out to be something utterly harrowing'

And that’s exactly what happened on the morning of November 10 – with the couple only finding out about Lenny’s adventure through social media.

The cat left home, wandered to a station on the Buxton line connecting High Peak's commuters with Manchester, and boarded a train heading for Piccadilly.

His family were unaware of his whereabouts until business developer Laura spotted a post on a local Facebook group.

Alongside a photo of Lenny standing on one of the table seats, it read: “This cat is riding the train between Buxton and Whaley Bridge.”

The post racked up a whopping 3.1k likes, 340 comments and 430 shares – thankfully catching the attention of mum-of-one Laura.

Instantly recognising Lenny from the picture, Laura frantically called James and the pair quickly thought of a plan of how to retrieve him.

“The post on Facebook got shared a lot so we were contacted by loads of people that recognised him and knew he belonged to us,” James told the Manchester Evening News. “He’s clearly got a lot of friends.

“I checked his AirTag tracker and could see he was around five miles away.

“I was working from home and had no car so asked my neighbour for a lift to Whaley