Tis one thing I heard mentioned a few months ago - there are a number of private firms making a quick buck out of holding lost property hostage, and perhaps GBR should be making that buck - albeit a far smaller, acceptable and fair charge that only funds the LP service and nothing more.
Sounds to me like at least one hotel that does move hundreds of miles a day managed to provide a good standard, from the posts here.
Does the railway not? That would seem like a very short-sighted way to run a service, to me!
Fantastic example of a false dichotomy there folks! I'm sure you know what i mean from the explanation but to clarify for the pedants:
The railway doesn't have a captive market of season ticket holders anymore. That ship has sailed, and there's a great deal more discretionary leisure journeys taking place where there often is a choice of mode of transport. That's why I think this attitude that "the passengers will put up with it because they have to, and always have" is foolish.
Adam’s covered the basic arguments but per your last point, there **was** such an announcement (and I still think they’re overkill). But humans will human and forget on the first weekend in literally months I’ve needed to take out more than a light jacket that I’ve got one with me in a moment of distraction.
Which just illustrates my repeated point that the majority of these announcements are nowt to do with behaviour changes but entirely box ticking exercises to cover various backsides.
Sadly it seems some contributers disagree and feel that the railway making reasonable arrangements for dealing with lost property is not something that is necessary. After all people have to travel by train so don't deserve (seems to be the implication) a basic level of customer service.
It's reasonable that the railway has engaged a contractor who is open 7 days a week but only provides access to the lost property 5 days week in office hours? Pull the other one. I know you like to defend the industry come hell or high water but even you must be able to see this is poor.
I do rather disagree with that - the railway are obliged to operate within the financial limitations they have. Where a small B&B or operator like Caledonian can trace things quite easily, and even a large hotel can keep lost property on site, railways don't have that luxury. Up to 200 sites over a large geographical area, some which are not - and should not - be made accessible to the public, and many others that are not staffed over the entire day, and lost property can end up found and logged at any one of them. It ultimately comes down to the system - usually third party, because it makes precious little sense to pay for an in-house system to be developed - that the operators use, and when you're constantly being pushed for "net subsidy reductions" then it only goes one way, particularly as the market for lost property system providers is pretty limited.
Lost property has always been a lottery. The old SR office under Waterloo had awkward hours, was hard to find, and charged for the privilege back in BR days. It was also hard to contact and more or less insisted upon travelling in on the offchance that they'd found the item.
Why exactly would an in-house system not make sense? Part of our development team is currently adapting SBB's lost property app. The entire system has been in place for years, involves numerous TOC (and other parts of public transport), and is continuously being adapted. Lost property is stored centrally, recorded electronically, and compared with loss reports.
There is always a choice between developing and maintaining systems in house, and procuring externally. The easily measurable cost of purchasing those services needs to be compared with the costs of maintaining in house teams to do this work, and both compared to the value of providing that service directly against asking someone else to do so. In some industries (certainly mail), international trade organisations provide these services for individual member operators to purchase.
It would, for a national operator, make significant sense to have a central development team that can handle things like this - I've seen the SBB app and the difference between it, and UK apps, is like night and day. I'd give my right arm for systems of SBB's quality some days! (One more for the GBR list...!) Unfortunately, with the fragmented nature of the UK rail and the "plan to the next election" approach of government, there's no business case for each business having a team of developers building different systems to do the same job (which ends up having its own issues, like business intelligence shortfalls because the people who work on it end up being enthusiastic amateurs like me).
It still is at least three of those things!
I agree that it's not ideal, but at what point do we draw a line? If EMR operated it directly, they might well have chosen the same hours. There comes a point at which the cost of providing the service outweighs the benefit - every member of staff you employ adds c.£50k to the bill, and while an 18-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week service like SNCF would be ideal, that comes at the expense of something else to fund the 4 members of staff, one manager, and any property costs that come with it, per operator. It's a typical business balancing act that GBR should be in an ideal position to fix, really (with my most optimistic hat on). Worth noting that Heathrow lost property 0900-1600, Monday to Saturday. Gatwick too is 0900-1600, Monday to Friday - and these are arguably far more 24-hour operations that St Pancras.
Whilst that is an example of excellent service, there's rather a significant difference between the tube and heavy rail that means something like this is a lot easier to do on the tube even today.
This is wrong for Gatwick at least - 10am-4pm 7 days a weekIt would, for a national operator, make significant sense to have a central development team that can handle things like this - I've seen the SBB app and the difference between it, and UK apps, is like night and day. I'd give my right arm for systems of SBB's quality some days! (One more for the GBR list...!) Unfortunately, with the fragmented nature of the UK rail and the "plan to the next election" approach of government, there's no business case for each business having a team of developers building different systems to do the same job (which ends up having its own issues, like business intelligence shortfalls because the people who work on it end up being enthusiastic amateurs like me).
It still is at least three of those things!
I agree that it's not ideal, but at what point do we draw a line? If EMR operated it directly, they might well have chosen the same hours. There comes a point at which the cost of providing the service outweighs the benefit - every member of staff you employ adds c.£50k to the bill, and while an 18-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week service like SNCF would be ideal, that comes at the expense of something else to fund the 4 members of staff, one manager, and any property costs that come with it, per operator. It's a typical business balancing act that GBR should be in an ideal position to fix, really (with my most optimistic hat on). Worth noting that Heathrow lost property 0900-1600, Monday to Saturday. Gatwick too is 0900-1600, Monday to Friday - and these are arguably far more 24-hour operations that St Pancras.
Whilst that is an example of excellent service, there's rather a significant difference between the tube and heavy rail that means something like this is a lot easier to do on the tube even today.
www.lostproperty.org
Yeah agreed, I think had it not been Sunday I'd have had my social media message picked up before the train terminated (and in those cases EMR are usually pretty good in my experience with sending it on the next train to a station where I can meet it)
It’s a good question - incidentally I've now got my coat/keys back after taking the initiative and (after explaining the situation to gateline staff who kindly let me through) walking around the platforms where they were last seen. Turns out they were in the cleaners cupboard on the platform, and one quick chat with a cleaner later I had everything back.
It has the benefit of requiring the details of each passenger, and where they will be accommodated, before they board. That makes any lost property easy to trace. I wasn't required to give any details before boarding any of the 7 trains I used on Saturday.
Public transport in Switzerland is also fragmented. However, this does not stop the companies involved from collaborating in the interests of customers. 'Lost and Found' is one such example, but there are others, such as group travel reservations or live information data interfaces. Some of these are required by law, while others are developed within joint organisations or between individual companies.
From some of the answers on here (and also judging from the standard generally displayed by the approach to lost property) it would appear that the answer to your question is an emphatic no, no they're not. Which is a shame really. It's not rocket science but it does require you to give a damn about your customers. Thankfully we see many instances of staff on the ground (and elsewhere) who do give a damn and try to make the best of a bad situation. But sadly many of those far higher up the chain appear to not care a jot.
Exactly to my point about staff on the ground doing an excellent job! But I worry what might have happened to the intrepid bag had it ended up going all the way to Norwich...
I imagine a reasonable number of people would. After all, I actually imagine leisure travellers are more likely to leave something behind, whereas commuters during the week will have their rucksack with a laptop in and be well versed in picking it up. Purely anecdotal mind. I've only left property on a train once, a suit in a suit carrier, and I got it back from LNER pretty easily.
Perhaps not but if you lose something on a Friday evening it seems pretty poor service that you have to wait 3 days until you can find out whether they've even picked it up or not.
While that may be, there is also the fact that there is a larger body with sufficient presence and resource that has the ability to steer the process and other operators will jump on board because it makes sense to do so, which isn't the case in the UK - no one operator is large enough to make it worth developing a system that others would then use to effectively centralise the process (not least because owning groups would absolutely want to charge competitors for the privilege, because ancillary revenue was one area that didn't have a chunk removed by the DfT for many operators). I can't see the Jura railway being able to do what SBB has done in terms of developing a large lost property service that others have adopted.
This rather oversimplifies the nature of things - one can be supremely interested in customers, but not have the capacity or capability to do what's being asked.
I certainly agree with the first part - but I'd suggest it's got a lot more to do with doing what you can with what you've got than avoiding responsibility - hence most operators logging and managing lost property themselves, but utilising a third party portal for the customer end.
