For all of those who've done high school physics, the concept of Schroedinger's Cat is a bizarre thought experiment that will haunt you for the rest of your days. In a nutshell, the cat, hidden away in a box that has been exposed to subatomic particles, may or may not be dead, & the state of the cat may be dictated or affected by the observation of the cat's state.
Yes, this may be a paradox.
That's exactly why travellers passing through Central station are not surprised to hear that the lift provided by the rail service has a state of existence almost entirely dependent on observation. Paradox comes for free beside the oxymoron of "Public Transport".
Said lift may also be akin to the Hogwart's "Room of Requirement" which can only be found if you are truly in need of it.
To quote the recorded announcement "If you have a pram or luggage, a lift is provided at the end of the platform, near the front of the train."
As you can see, this is a standard conditional statement, implying that if you don't have luggage, or indeed have two prams, then the lift will not be at the end of the platform. It may be somewhere else. The announcement is not clear on this point. It also may not be available in working order - it is simply provided in the decorative sense.
Perhaps, to continue the Harry Potter reference, I have been consistently arriving at platform 9 3/4, on which only those holding the equivalent of wizarding paraphernalia (in this case, a pram) can approach the lift without ramming their afore-said perambulator into a post.
If I might skip between my transport & language blogs, it can be seen that conditional statements are not only unnecessary under the circumstances, but downright confusing. It would have been much simpler to say "The lift IS at the end of the platform" without befuddling the morning-time brains of commuters with existentialist tosh.
That being said, platform announcements would become more honest & less tedious if they took the track of simplification to the point of no return: "The next train intended for platform 24 may be heading south soon"
