Passengers baffled to find live crab on train heading to the seaside

Train passengers were shell-shocked after discovering a live crab on a train – sitting in its own seat.

The commuter – who has been named Craig – was found on Wednesday evening on a South Western Railway service from London to Portsmouth.

Train driver Mark Walsh was approached by a passenger about the crustacean, and at first thought it was a joke until he saw the creature.

Mark says that Craig was quite poorly from the journey, but they dropped him off at a park with a pond in Southsea.

The driver speculated that the crab might have escaped from a fisherman’s box or had been placed as a prank by schoolchildren.

Great Western Railway posted about the incident on Facebook, writing: ‘Unusual customer alert. On a recent SWR journey, one of our drivers, Mark, was approached by a polite customer who said: ‘Excuse me driver, there’s a live crab on the seat over there and it’s been there since I got on at Guildford.’

‘The crab – who Mark named Craig the Crab – made it all the way to Portsmouth and Southsea before being re-homed.’

Mark commented on the post: ‘Feet on the seat. So shellfish & inconsiderate..’

He told the BBC: ‘Some people were quite concerned because I was walking around the station with a crab in my hand, but most people didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘They must have just thought another day in Pompey.’

It’s not the only bizarre stowaway spotted on trains.

In 2022, a four-foot snake – native to US states such as Louisiana and Florida – was found on a train travelling around south-east England.

The reptile was hidden for ‘some time’ before being discovered.

It was spotted slithering along the carriage of a Southern Rail train by staff at the Selhurst Train Depot in Croydon, south London.

The service had been travelling between London, Kent and Sussex for weeks until the unexpected stowaway was discovered.

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