lost property and theft

[Glostergull]

Hi everyone. i'm new here having never seen this forum before.
I would like help and also your opinions on the above subject
I was travelling from Manchester to Gloucester changing at Birmingham new st on 15th December 2015. I arrived at New st at roughly 19;00 the next trains were due to arrive almost together and as a result receivling assistance due to my disability I got on the Nottingham Cardiff which arrived at Gloucester at roughly 20.15. at some point on the class 170 my guitar was either left by mistake on the luggage rack behind my head above me or was stolen. the station staff at Cardiff said the guitar was not on the train at Cardiff so as a result it was not at lost property at Newport either. I have informed the Police. there is a vague Possibilty it was not put on at Birmihgham new st but i have my doubts there.
I would love to hear from anyone who saw a silver grey soft gig bag being taken off the train at any time or either carried off of New st Station on the 15th December to let the BTP know who will be pleased no doubt to tell me. but it has raised an issue. in reporting it. the Railway companies are really not interested in lost property or theft. at all. they will not give anyone a phone number for any station so you can check nor will they ask the property office either. all you can do is fill out an online form and hope above all hopes that you may hear something in ten days. it does not even specifiy ten days or ten working days . so it could be two weeks before you hear anything or you may not hear anything at all. The Police are in charge of this case now and I have had two calls from Worcester who are handling it and they report that the TOC is not in the slightest interested in helping. in deed he said they were actually inconsiderate and obstructive in his enquiries. this is terribly troubling. BR and indeed the older pre nationalised companies at least had some manners and did what they could. it seems as if todays railway companies don't give a hoot if you lose anything or have anything stolen. Am I right to be worried by this turn of events. I have serious disability in the brain which makes short term memory very difficult and i lose track of what i am carrying and occasionally where I am. there is an issue here where disabled people could be in serious danger of criminal acts because no one cares enough to help. what are you views and any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[deltic]

Welcome to the forum Glostergull and sorry to hear about your loss. I would suggest in these circumstances the TOC should where applicable review CCTV coverage to see if the item had been left on the original train, been removed by someone else etc and to co-operate fully with the police.

A large amount of money is spent on putting in CCTV across the rail network but it is not clear what use is actually made of it or how sophisticated face recognition facilities are on the network.

 

[Bevan Price]

I am not sure that phoning individual stations would help - I suspect that nowadays they possibly forward any lost property to some central location for the relevant TOC.

 

[Glostergull]

Hi Guys
I did talk to both the TOC who ran the train. X country which is owned by arrival. and Arriva Wales who run Cardiff Central. (I thought Great Western Railway would have) they were not the slightest bit interested. All i was told was ring the lost property helpline and if i did not hear anything then they haven't got it.
Which is a joke. whoever has nicked it would be clean away by now.
The Police have tried to get them to co operate but found them nothing short of obstructiive. it is a charter for thieves to steal what they like and get away with it in the knowledge that the TOC will do nothing about it and won't assist the Police. They don't have cameras on the class 170 and as for getting CCTV from the stationg. well we can only dream. In won't be trusting them again. but i will be taking this up with my MP. They may have CCTV but obviously only pay lip service to it.
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I am not sure that phoning individual stations would help - I suspect that nowadays they possibly forward any lost property to some central location for the relevant TOC.

Hi Bevan.
I wanted to ring Newport and Cardiff to try and cut off any chance the thief had to get away scott free. I needed to find out quickly. but the staff at Cardiff said no guitar had been taken off to their knowledge and everything had been sent to Newport that morning. Newport would not co operate with the Police when the police actually turned up on their doorstep. they were viewed as nothing more than an inconvenience or nuisance. The Police told me that they were very annoyed at the attitude of the staff.

 

[455driver]

I wanted to ring Newport and Cardiff to try and cut off any chance the thief had to get away scott free. I needed to find out quickly. but the staff at Cardiff said no guitar had been taken off to their knowledge and everything had been sent to Newport that morning. Newport would not co operate with the Police when the police actually turned up on their doorstep. they were viewed as nothing more than an inconvenience or nuisance. The Police told me that they were very annoyed at the attitude of the staff.

If you had got through on the phone to Newport and Cardiff what exactly did you think would happen?
The staff are not going to stop everyone with a guitar are they, anyway by the time you had got through to them the 'thief' would have been off the station and miles away before you got to speak to the staff at the station.

Any lost property would have gone to a central point (Newport by the sounds of it) and if they hadn't had a guitar handed in on the day in question then they didn't have it, what more could they do to 'co-operate' with the Police I don't know, they either have it or they don't, and if they don't there isn't anything else they could do!

Police- Have you had a guitar handed in?
LP- No
Police- Are you sure?
LP- yes.

That's about it really!
What more did you expect them to do?

 

[ComUtoR]

Is this confirmed now to be stolen ? You stated it may have been lost.

 

[headshot119]

If you had got through on the phone to Newport and Cardiff what exactly did you think would happen?
The staff are not going to stop everyone with a guitar are they, anyway by the time you had got through to them the 'thief' would have been off the station and miles away before you got to speak to the staff at the station.

Any lost property would have gone to a central point (Newport by the sounds of it) and if they hadn't had a guitar handed in on the day in question then they didn't have it, what more could they do to 'co-operate' with the Police I don't know, they either have it or they don't, and if they don't there isn't anything else they could do!

Police- Have you had a guitar handed in?
LP- No
Police- Are you sure?
LP- yes.

That's about it really!
What more did you expect them to do?

I've had experience of ATW lost property, and although I can't quite work out what the OP is trying to say fully in there posts. (It might not even have been on the train at Birmingham New Street so could have ended up there) I've had personal experience of ATW lost property and found them to be fairly useless.

I rather stupidly left my backpack containing my laptop and various other bits on the luggage rack of a train when I got off at Cardiff Central, sods law dictated it was the one time I'd arrived on a none terminating train.

About 10 minutes later having got a train round to Cathays I realised what I'd done, checked Realtimetrains and established the train would arrive at Swansea a short time later.

I phoned ATW customer services and explained my situation and kindly asked if Swansea could be contacted and asked to remove the bag and I would be happy to go and collect it.

I was told that was possible and she'd call me back when it was confirmed they had it.

Two hours later no phone call, so I phoned back and spoke to her. She told me that nothing could be done till the train arrived at its destination.

I was a little annoyed and asked what exactly would happen at Tenby when the train terminated. She couldn't tell me. But said she'd call me in the morning to update be.

Fast forward a bit to the next day. No phone call as promised, so I rang back. Turns out the woman I'd spoken to wasn't in work and could never have returned the call as promised, her colleague looked into it, and said he'd ring Tenby and ask if they had it.

I became a little more frustrated at this point, (Tenby isn't a manned station), but he'd already put me on hold to phone them, a short while later he told me he couldn't get through to anyone at Tenby.

I asked him to phone Carmarthen depot and ask them if they had it.

He then tells me he can't phone stations and depots to check for lost property! (So why had he just phoned Tenby).

After a bit of persuasion he did ring Carmathen, told me they had it. But I'd have to wait 2 weeks for it be forwarded to Newport before I could pick it up and pay a release fee.

I told him I'd be going up to Carmarthen to pick it up that day. He said I wouldn't be as Carmarthen wouldn't release it to me. It went back and forth some more, insisting that I couldn't pick up my property at my expense.

I left the conversation along the lines of, I'm off to Carmarthen, tell them to expect me, and if they don't want to give it back to me I'll phone back and ask to speak to someone more senior, and if it keeps on going I'll call the police.

Arrived at Carmarthen, sought out the station staff who couldn't have been more helpful, they where also miffed it hadn't been sorted at Swansea in the first place, the guard who brought it in at the end of his shift said it'd been on the train at Carmarthen after it'd been to Tenby and back.


TOCs go on at staff about unattended items, and suspicious packages, as they do at customers, but are quite happy to allow an unattended bag to travel 90 miles more than it needs to.

 

[Jonfun]

Certainly on XC, lost property gets handed in at the terminus station and is dealt with by the TOC who operates it. Yes, it's inconvenient if you're going Bournemouth to Brockenhurst and your mobile ends up at Manchester Piccadilly's lost property office, but at the end of the day if property is left on the railway they have a duty of care to ensure it is kept safe and as such, it's the best way to ensure items don't unexpectedly go walkies.

Sadly thefts do happen, but in many cases it's a simple case of someone making a mistake. Clearly marking your luggage with contact details is a simple yet effective way to reunite you with your item should it be inadvertantly lost.