Lost Property (Oxford - London Marylebone)

So... I hopped onto a Chiltern Railways service bound for Marylebone at Oxford at 17:41 last Saturday (12th October) and got off Bicester Village without my backpack that I'd left on the overhead rack.

I've filled a lost property form with Chiltern Railways on Sunday but have not heard back since. Given that the service terminates in Marylebone where the Chiltern Lost Property Department is, I should've received a call pretty soon - it's been four long days without my house keys, a backpack for work, and other small useful knick-knacks.

Is there anything that the community here would recommend doing? Should I visit the lost property office in person and ask if I can have a quick look through? I'm worried that the longer I wait, the more likely it is to be lost under the pile of items returned.

It could of course never have been handed in and stolen or it was not found until it made it to a depot and then begins the process of being moved to chilterns lost property department.

Why would an item that is lost become lost in a plie of lost items? That is a very bizzare statement.

The Lost Property Office at Marylebone is located in a non-public area of the station, so you wouldn't be allowed to visit it in person to have a look. Even if it was in a public area, the "back of house" location where items are stored would be a secure area.

The Lost Property page on the Chiltern website says the following:

Chiltern Railways website said:

Please note it can take up to three weeks for an item to arrive at our lost property office and be processed.

We will contact you if your item(s) is found and you will be issued with a reference number. You will need to quote this reference number when you collect your property from Marylebone stations.

Please allow up to three weeks for processing lost items. If you do not hear from us during this time, you should assume that your item has not been found.

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It's possible the bag wasn't found during the turnaround clean at Marylebone and made its way back to Oxford, in which case there's a possibility that it could have ended up going to GWR's Lost Property Office in Bristol. They can be contacted at [email protected]; or it could have been taken off at another station en route, meaning you'd need to wait until they send their Lost Property down to Marylebone before they could start matching it.

Bigfoot said:

It could of course never have been handed in and stolen or it was not found until it made it to a depot and then begins the process of being moved to chilterns lost property department.

Why would an item that is lost become lost in a plie of lost items? That is a very bizzare statement.

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Read somewhere that the network handles thousands of lost items daily. Just worried that my bag will be one of many black bags in a storeroom that will be forgotten...

CyrusWuff said:

The Lost Property Office at Marylebone is located in a non-public area of the station, so you wouldn't be allowed to visit it in person to have a look. Even if it was in a public area, the "back of house" location where items are stored would be a secure area.

The Lost Property page on the Chiltern website says the following:


It's possible the bag wasn't found during the turnaround clean at Marylebone and made its way back to Oxford, in which case there's a possibility that it could have ended up going to GWR's Lost Property Office in Bristol. They can be contacted at [email protected]; or it could have been taken off at another station en route, meaning you'd need to wait until they send their Lost Property down to Marylebone before they could start matching it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, seems like going down in person wouldn't help. I just have to be patient and hope my bag turned up somewhere...

I reached out to GwR and they were prompt in replying that nothing was picked up in Oxford that fit the description that evening... With Chiltern, I won't know if my bag is somewhere waiting to be tagged or just not turned in at all.