Trapped cat travels 1,700 miles The two-year-old tabby, who had been missing for three weeks, was only discovered when train manager Emily Mahoney-Smith, 33, heard her desperate mewing. Her left foreleg was fractured and became infected meaning that it had to amputated. But she is now on the mend and will soon go home to Arthur Westington, a former train driver, 84, and his wife Louisa, 82, near Plymouth. It thought she crawled into the train at a rail yard in Plymouth while a maintenance panel was removed last Thursday. Polly then spent the next two days trapped without food or water. A spokesman for First Great Western, the train operator, said: "We're pretty sure the cat had been stuck on board for some time. It was ensconced in the underbelly and couldn't have got there unless the train was in a depot. That part of the train isn't accessible from a normal station stop so the latest it could realistically have stowed away would have been at Plymouth, where it started service. We've calculated it did at least 1,667 miles. Ms Mahoney-Smith heard Polly's cries at Plymouth but could not find where they were coming from until the train reached St Germans, where she and the driver got out to investigate. They found Polly who was put in a box and given tuna from a buffet sandwich. On-call vet Matthew Berriman was called by the RSPCA and it was discovered Polly was microchipped. Despite her injuries she was operated on and Mrs Westington was contacted. She said she "can't wait" to have her home.