TRAIN companies are urging passengers to be extra vigilant with their belongings over the Easter period after new research revealed that nearly half of us have left something behind on board.

The good news is that ticket sales have soared for travel over Easter, but the bad news is there’ll be even more lost property for staff to contend with.

Reading materials are the most forgotten items on UK rail with Brits leaving behind enough books, newspapers and magazines to fill the British Library three times over. In second place are umbrellas, one of which is left on UK trains every 15 seconds according to thetrainline.com, closely followed by glasses, bags and coats.

Perhaps more alarming are the stranger items left by passengers including dogs, a full-sized harp, a gouda cheese, an urn filled with ashes and an unspecified laboratory sample.

Relatives are another regular afterthought with a one per cent of travellers admitting to absent-mindedly getting off the train without their grandmother, spouse, elderly mother or even their child.

Lost property left behind on South West Trains ends up at Waterloo station (well, probably not granny). So if you leave a bike at Brockenhurst, a wallet in Wool or a pogo stick in Poole, it will end up in London.

Six full-time staff work sort and store each piece. They field 350 calls a day as well as enquiries by e-mail, fax and in person. Around 60 per cent of items are reunited with their owners. Everything else is auctioned off after three months.

I visited the huge lost property area at Waterloo to see first hand the weird and wonderful things left on trains and often forgotten. The first thing that hit me was the smell – a dusty, thick oppressive smell of 30,000 personal effects which stayed in my nostrils for hours.

On that particular day the lost property manager gleefully pointed out a life-size cardboard cut-out of Pamela Anderson, a prosthetic arm, and a full set of chef’s knives including a meat cleaver. There was also a gas mask, a deep fat fryer (out of its box), an African mask and a toy hamster which sang Kung Fu Fighting.

The musical instruments were enough to start a station orchestra, and I wondered how someone could not only forget their huge sail board but then not bother to claim it.

Luckily, a bride did come back for her mislaid wedding cake, as did the stonecutter who left behind three bags of rubies, emeralds and sapphires in a suitcase together with £36,000 of cash.

Nothing surprises the staff any more, and they try to keep things lighthearted, despite the sad times – such as when people lose their pets or portfolios of artwork which took years to compile.

The ebb and flow of lost property takes on a seasonal theme. During the school holidays there’s an influx of rucksacks. Wimbledon sees a flood of tennis rackets, and at Easter they get nothing but eggs!

Ben Pearson, commercial director for thetrainline.com said: “With over three million passengers a day on UK trains, it’s not so much is left behind.

“While some of the results are amusing, we’d urge passengers to be extra vigilant this Easter – especially given that this is one of the busiest times in the year for UK rail travel.”

Top 10 lost items 1 Reading material 2 Umbrella 3 Glasses 4 Handbag or briefcase 5 Coat 6 Mobile phone or MP3 player 7 Wallet 8 Child’s toy 9 Sports equipment 10 Keys