Lost Property General Questions and Advice

[ahmedashed]

Hi guys,

First hello everyone, I have just signed up to this forum and was wondering about advice form you guys about trains concerning a lost property I had.

Story
I got on a Northern York train (one of the new ones) on 23rd of March at Leeds at 10:57 and changed at Preston and forgot my valuable suitcase (daydreaming) in the overhead luggage in the train. As soon as I realised I called Northern while I was on the train from Preston to Lancaster and they said they would check it at Blackpool North, the terminating station 2 stations down, poulton le fylde was the station in between. They couldn't find it and said somebody might have taken it. So far I have checked with lost property at
1. Blackpool North - nothing handed in
2. Poulton le fylde - nothing handed in
3. York station - through missingx.com nothing is showing
4. Called British transport police to access the CCTV of the train and they are currently in progress with the investigation

Now any other general advice would be great/anything that I have not already tried would be great

Also another question would Northern be using the same carriage on that route everytime? or do you think they change it everytime, as I am tempted just to jump on that route anyways to double check it has not been missed, thank you very much in advance everyone.

 

[FGW_DID]

I see you have tried MissingX.com which was going to be my recommendation.

You may be very very lucky and find the same unit on the same route but chances are it won’t be.
If nobody has taken it or it’s not been handed to station staff it would have ended up back at the depot with the empty stock, if this has happened it may have been found by the cleaning team.
If it’s anything like the procedure at my depot, the cleaners pass any property to the stores who then will send it on to the lost property department. This transfer may only happen once a week or longer so it may be worth checking back in a few days time to allow it to get “in the system”.

 

[ahmedashed]

I see you have tried MissingX.com which was going to be my recommendation.

You may be very very lucky and find the same unit on the same route but chances are it won’t be.
If nobody has taken it or it’s not been handed to station staff it would have ended up back at the depot with the empty stock, if this has happened it may have been found by the cleaning team.
If it’s anything like the procedure at my depot, the cleaners pass any property to the stores who then will send it on to the lost property department. This transfer may only happen once a week or longer so it may be worth checking back in a few days time to allow it to get “in the system”.

Thank you so much for replying about that, they did tell me it did finish at York that day and implied that it went back to depot. If it went to that depot lost proprety, where would I be checking? for example call back at northern or missingx.com? Many thanks again for replying.

 

[FGW_DID]

If it has been found at the depot it should eventually work it’s way into the lost property system so keep trying both Northern’s own lost property system and checking MissingX.

 

[ahmedashed]

If it has been found at the depot it should eventually work it’s way into the lost property system so keep trying both Northern’s own lost property system and checking MissingX.

Thank you so much, at least this has given me one more option to try out, sorry to bother you for this

 

[FGW_DID]

No bother at all.

 

[ahmedashed]

So a funny thing happened today,

I snapped after being told I could be waiting 28 days before I hear anything from the British Transport Police about the CCTV concerning my lost property (understandable to be honest in the current climate) and I decided to go to Blackpool North myself and plead with the station manager to check the station CCTV.

Bear in mind I called northern 5 times on 4 separate days, which each time they assured me they called Blackpool North station, at the time of the call, and said no lost property has been handed in and said it is very unlikely that it will be found and gave me numbers for various other stations like York, Piccadilly, Euston.

Anyways so I get there and I describe my lost case to the station staff and they did in fact have it in lost property at Blackpool North. In addition to the fact that when I initially lost it I called northern to have the train checked when it arrived immediately at BPN and they said the staff could not find it.

So in short, it seems going yourself makes a difference sometimes despite what people say. Thanks.

Hope this will be useful to people in the future as well.

 

[DelW]

It's good to hear of a successful outcome, even though it took much more effort on your part than ought to have been needed. It's also good to hear something positive about the staff at Blackpool North, who haven't always been well regarded in reports on these forums. Not good about Northern's poor customer service though.