The 220-pound catfish was rescued after becoming trapped inside a flooded train station

Cat’s Cradle was a narrow gauge railway hub.

Rescuers had the ultimate catch-and-release experience after rescuing a Mekong River monster catfish that became trapped inside a flooded train station in Thailand.

“It was one of the biggest I’ve seen,” Boonsong Tangrid told Viral Press of the dramatic rescue, which took place in Chiang Mai on October 6.

The northern Thai city was hit by floods caused when the Ping River burst its banks due to heavy seasonal rains, killing three and forcing dozens of people into shelters.

Volunteers from the Uttaradit Songkroh Foundation were on their way to evacuate trapped residents from submerged houses when they spotted the “massive catfish” stuck outside a ticket booth at Saraphi railway station, via Tangrid.

“The water was at waist level and he couldn’t swim through the obstacles,” complained the volunteer.

He estimated that the giant — which is native to the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia and parts of China — was over 3 feet tall and weighed roughly 220 pounds (about the same weight as a refrigerator).

Rescuers reportedly had to evacuate nearby residents, so they handed the cat over to the station manager to watch until it was safe to release it.

While certainly large, this particular Mekong catfish was a puny compared to other examples of the species, which can grow to nearly 10 feet long and weigh 660 pounds, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The plus-sized plankton eater held the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest freshwater fish from 2005 until 2022, when it was eclipsed by a 661-pound tip that was caught in Cambodia.

The Mekong’s massive size has unsurprisingly made it a veritable holy grail among freshwater fishermen.

In fact, the species is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) due to overfishing, among other factors.

Due to the scarcity of fish, it is currently illegal to target Mekong catfish in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

However, Thailand allows fishing for private species reserves that both help to conserve the species while also allowing sport fishermen to keep the fish of their lives.

The most famous of these catfish reservoirs is the New Bungsamran fishing lake outside Bangkok, which houses a “Jurassic Park” list of river monsters from the Mekong to giant Siamese carp.

Some of the catfish that inhabit this monster soup are said to weigh over 400 pounds.