Trains aren’t good at stopping in a hurry. In fact, a fully-loaded freight train going 80 mph can take a full mile to come to a stop. But not every train is fully loaded or moving at 80 mph. And apparently, some of them stop for puppies. Pug puppies.

Imagine for a minute that your precious pug, Poppy, disappeared late at night. So you spent all night searching for her, but by morning you’ve still had no luck. This is the situation Dawn Bain of England found herself in. At the end of her wits, she began asking everyone she found if they had seen Poppy. She swung by the local train crossing to ask an employee. And they gave her some miraculous news.

Poppy was racing home to Mrs. Bain–aboard a train.

Mrs. Bain, still frazzled and in her night gown said, “My heart—it didn’t know whether to sing or stop.” She added,  “In comes this train with this beautiful man on, with Poppy sat on his knee. I cried, massively, and he cried.”  

That “beautiful man” was engineer Michael Jones. He had been cruising along, one crossing away, when he caught sight of a “flash of red” in some bushes. That flash was Poppy’s bright harness.

Jones said: “All of a sudden there was just this tiny little face just looking back at me…She was trembling and looking down at the ground.”

What did Jones do? Throw on the brakes, of course. He came to a complete stop, jumped out of the cab, scooped up the dog, and then got rolling again. After he called ahead to the next crossing, he fed Poppy some water and crumpets. Then they took selfies.

Poppy is unharmed and home with her companion Tinker, reportedly making a full recovery. No word yet on whether Jones is now racing out to get himself his own pet pug.

Next, learn about a border collie that disappeared from a car crash and turned up at a local farm, herding sheep.