Artificial legs, the keys to a Porsche and a stuffed ferret are among the 70 objects left on trains which have reached their final destination: the Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht.

Items that have been left on seats or in the overhead storage space usually end up as landfill, are recycled or sold if they are not claimed within three months.

But the lost and found department of Dutch railway company NS could not find it in its heart to destroy, among other things, two artificial legs (of which one with a shoe and stocking), delicate christening robes, a collection of insects and a cardboard gravestone.

Some of the items now on show in a special glass case at the railway museum were found over 30 years ago.

Why a person would not report the loss of a Russian tank helmet or a child’s violin will probably never be known but  NS spokesperson Anne van der Wel can imagine how it happens.  ‘People are in a hurry, they need to catch a connecting train, and they forget their things. Or they are nervous about a meeting,’ she told the AD.

‘It’s a cabinet of curiosities, but gives a good impression of the sort of thing people can leave on trains, Museum curator Tuur Verdonck said. ‘The violin takes me back to when I myself left my violin on a train once. But I got it back.’

Last year travellers left a combined 129,000 objects on trains of which some 60% were claimed by the owners. Public transport cards and bank cards are the most likely things to be left behind – some 55,000 are currently waiting to be claimed – followed by ‘countless’ mobile phones, bags of all shapes and sizes, purses and keys.