The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a thriller novel by Morton Freedgood, writing under the pseudonym John Godey.
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[edit] Plot
It starts as a normal day at the subway in New York, but the normality is interrupted by an unexpected hijacking of a subway train (on the number 6 line). The police force is confused by the hijacking because:
- the subway is a closed system; there is no place to take the train to escape, and
- all subway trains have a dead-man's switch which requires a live person at the controls to keep the train running, thus preventing a hijacker from escaping away from the running train.
The police frantically pursue the train on the city streets to deliver the ransom of one million dollars as the police attempts to negotiate and distract their attention. Unknown to the police, the four hijackers led by a mercenary named Bernard Ryder and a disgruntled former motorman Harold Longman have disabled the dead-man's switch. Once the hijackers receive their ransom money, they send the train off at top speed toward the terminal station where it would crash and thus kill all the passengers. Previously, the hijackers have left the train and attempted to escape out of the subway tunnels with their ransom money.
[edit] Film adaptations
[edit] Trivia
- In real radio communications among the New York City Transit Authority's train crews, a 24 hour clock is used. Technically, this would have made the title train "Pelham 1323"
This is true nowadays, however when the film was made, the 12hr clock was still in use.
- The novel is mentioned in the Beastie Boys' song Sure Shot.
[edit] External Links
