'Blood' on a rail ticket machine which sparked coronavirus fears turned out to be tomato ketchup.

But rail commuters are still fuming after it took several days before the machine at Frizinghall train station was cleaned.

Mark Sheppard, of Heaton, who commutes to work six days a week, thought the machine had been splattered in blood but Northern later confirmed it was tomato sauce.

"I reported to the service provider on three occasions and it still failed to be cleaned," said Mr Sheppard. 

"Due to the pandemic and the rules and guidance the public must follow I am disgusted and disappointed the company cannot follow simple cleaning protocols. It creates a source for things to spread.

"It's regularly used by commuters on a daily basis and I would expect that a touchscreen device such as this be cleaned every day."

A spokesperson for Northern said: “We would like to thank our customer for making us aware of the issue with one of our ticket machines at Frizinghall station. 

“The ticket machine was inspected and found to have tomato sauce on the screen. The entire machine has now been given a deep clean with an anti-viral cleaner.”

The spokesperson added: “Frizinghall is one of the stations that benefits from Northern’s enhanced cleaning programme, brought in to keep trains and stations as clean and safe as possible during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“These enhanced measures include a clear focus on cleaning touchpoints (handles, buttons and tables etc), with cleaning carried out by a team of more than 600 specialist staff across the network.”