Thameslink and Poundland were involved in a Twitter spat when the train company compared its poor service to the store’s chocolate.

The row started when an angry passenger tweeted Thameslink on Wednesday afternoon showing a picture of a list of cancelled trains.

The train company then responded: “Very sorry Kevin.

“Appreciate at the moment the service is less Ferrero Rocher and more Poundland cooking chocolate.”

Poundland, infuriated by the tweet, responded by slamming Govia Thameslink, the parent company of Thameslink, for being “off the rails” and went on to ridicule its record of customer complaints.

Poundland tweeted: “We couldn’t help notice that your Twitter team described your failure to provide an adequate service as ‘Poundland’ cooking chocolate.

“Frankly you have no right to use our name to describe poor service.

“We served eight million shoppers last week and didn’t have to close any store due to leaves on the roof, the wrong kind of rain, or a shortage of managers.

“But if we ever fall short, perhaps we’ll describe ourselves as a bit of Thameslink.

“If you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team, we suggest you remove your tweet.”

The row was defused when Thameslink issued an apology yesterday.

A spokeswoman said: “This was meant to be lighthearted, not cause offence.

“We have taken down the tweet and apologised to Poundland.”

This comes after Govia receiving relentless complaints after it introduced new timetables on May 20.

It cancelled dozens of trains hours after it launched the new changes, which was publicised as the biggest timetable shake-up of a railway timetable in the UK.

Disgruntled passengers have started a petition on the UK Government and Parliament websites calling for action.

It called for the Secretary of State to intervene immediately over Govia’s timetable failures. So far, it has collected more than 10,000 signatures. It needs 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate in Parliament.