MP tweets Avanti West Coast complaining about cancelled train and 'mouldy' cake

Cat Smith, who has represented Lancaster and Fleetwood since 2015, said her Avanti train had been cancelled, no hot water was available on her later service and she had eaten a mouldy brownie.

The company’s Twitter account replied to Ms Smith’s tweet, asking for clearer photo evidence before saying it would investigate the issues and provide a refund for the brownie.

Ms Smith said: “So far today @AvantiWestCoast have cancelled my train, so I am on a later train with no seat reservation, they have no hot water and the chocolate brownie I bought from the shop has mould growing on it… which I only noticed after the first bite tasted off – useless company”.

When asked by Avanti if she had reported the issue to staff onboard, she added: “No, I’m not doing the obstacle course of climbing over suitcases and dogs all in the aisles of the train to report this to the shop.”

The MP then posted pictures of her brownie and a carriage door that appeared to be blocked by bags and suitcases.

Ms Smith spoke of her own cancelled and delayed journey to London, adding: “That won’t come as any surprise to my constituents whose lives have been disrupted by this train company for far, far too long now.”

She claimed: “Today’s announcement of the contract extension has been met with anger by my constituents, but I’ve got to say that Avanti really did take the biscuit today when they managed to even serve mouldy food from their on board shop.

“So my constituents would like to know from the secretary of state what on earth have Avanti got to do other than be the worst performing rail operator in the country to actually lose this contract?”