The office has to send the infants to a welfare institute, if nobody comes to claim it.

The lost-and-found office said it takes pride in the happy moments when lost items are returned to their delighted owners.

"Our observation is that the owners are generally mightily relieved. That is understandable, since they've lost something and managed to find it again," Li said.

Cases involving large amounts of lost property are not unusual. A worker who just returned from Iraq left behind $2,300, bottles of imported wine and two Longines watches, stuffed into socks, in the waiting room.

Zhang also recalled an aged couple returning to the station office to hand in a handbag that they had picked up by mistake. It had more than 3,000 yuan inside. "They were anxious and took pains to explain that they were not thieves."

The office receives at least one item waiting to be retrieved every day, according to staff members. The amount increases to more than 10 items every day during the Spring Festival travel period every year.

Located at the bustling exit of the station, the lost-and-found office has been in service since the station was established in 1959. With tens of thousands of passengers arriving and departing from the station every day, the amount being stored in the lost-and-found office is also increasing daily.

Passengers lose luggage or other possessions most often on trains that have just arrived, on security-checking machines or under seats in waiting rooms.

Chai Yulan, who worked at the office decades ago, said that most of the items in the office in the 1990s were of little worth from today's perspective.

"Most were items in daily use, like umbrellas in summer and gloves in winter. The gloves are not made of fur, by the way. People simply could not afford it. Some people also came back for maize flour or bags of rice they left behind," Chai said.

The storage was smelly at that time because it was filled with dirty clothes and quilts, Chai said.

However, as the years went by, the value of items registered at the office increased. With prosperity, people began to lose digital products and credit cards, instead of cups and small change.

According to the office, the most common items on the lost-and-found list are suitcases containing clothes and local specialties, quilts, laptops and digital gadgets, such as cell phones, cameras and MP3 players.