Great Train Robbery (1963)

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For other uses, see The Great Train Robbery.

The Great Train Robbery is the name given to a £2.6 million train robbery committed on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.^[1] The bulk of the stolen money was not recovered. This was probably the largest robbery by value, in British history, until the Securitas depot robbery of 2006 in Kent.

1 Robbery
2 Investigation and capture
3 Aftermath
4 In popular culture
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Robbery

The Glasgow to London travelling post office (TPO) train was stopped by a red light at Sears Crossing. The signals had been tampered with, unknown to the driver, with a glove placed over the green light and a six-volt battery temporarily powering the red one. The co-driver David Whitby went to call the signalman only to find the telephone cables had been cut. Upon returning to the train, he was thrown down the embankment of the railway track.^[2]

One problem the robbers encountered was that the diesel train was different from the local trains, making it difficult to operate. One of the robbers had spent months befriending railway staff and familiarising himself with the layout and operation but it was decided instead to use an experienced train driver, Stan Agate, to drive the train from the stopping point at the signals to the bridge after uncoupling the unnecessary carriages. Unfortunately, Stan Agate (who was never traced or linked with the robbery) was unable to operate the train and it was quickly decided that the original driver, Jack Mills, would move the train down the track. The high-value carriage was decoupled from the others and driven a further half a mile to Bridego Bridge where the robbers' Land Rovers lay in wait. Stan Agate's participation in the robbery was Ronnie Biggs' only task and when it became obvious that they were useless they were banished to the awaiting ex-army truck to help load the mail bags.

A 15-member gang, led by Bruce Reynolds and including Biggs, Charlie Wilson, Jimmy Hussey, Roy James, Jimmy White, Tommy Wisbey, Gordon Goody and Buster Edwards, one of whom was an ex-British Army paratrooper, boarded the train and began to unload the money sacks into waiting vehicles on the road below the bridge. Although no guns were used, the train driver was hit on the head with an iron bar, causing a black eye and facial bruising. The assailant was one of two members of the gang who was never identified. Frank Williams (at the time a Detective Inspector) claims to have traced the man, but he could not be charged because of lack of evidence. Mills recovered but had constant trauma headaches the rest of his life. He died in 1970 from leukemia.

£2,631,784 was stolen in used £1, £5 and £10 notes, the equivalent of £40 million (US $80 million) adjusted for 2006 inflation.^[3]

[edit] Investigation and capture

After receiving an anonymous tip-off, police went to Leatherslade Farm near Oakley, Buckinghamshire five days later. There they found fingerprints of the robbers - including those on a Monopoly board game, used after the robbery but with real money.

The first gang member caught was Roger Cordrey and his friend who helped him to conceal his share of the stolen money, William Boal. They were lying low in a rented furnished flat above a florist shop in Wimborne Road, Moordown, Bournemouth. Bournemouth CID were tipped-off by police widow Ethel Clark, when Boal and Cordey paid rent for a garage, three months' up-front, all in used 10 shilling notes. Their arrests were made in Tweedale Road off Castle Lane West.^[4]

Thirteen of the gang members were caught. They were tried, sentenced on 16 April 1964 and imprisoned.

Ronnie Biggs escaped from prison 15 months into his sentence, with a considerable amount of the money. He escaped while he was outside training. Biggs scaled a 30ft wall with three other prisoners using a ladder thrown from the outside during the prisoners' afternoon exercise. Biggs climbed the ladder and lowered himself into a waiting van. They were driven from the prison in three cars. Biggs settled in Adelaide, Australia where he worked as a builder and lived a relatively normal life. He was tipped off by persons unknown and moved to Melbourne, later escaping to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after police discovered his Melbourne address. Biggs could not be extradited from Brazil because he was about to father a Brazilian child. As a result he lived openly in Rio for many years, untouchable by British authorities.

Charlie Wilson escaped in August 1964^[5] and took up residence outside Montreal, Canada on Rigaud Mountain. In the upper-middle-class neighbourhood, where the large, secluded properties are surrounded by trees, Wilson lived under the name Ronald Alloway, a name borrowed from a Fulham shopkeeper. He joined an exclusive golf club and participated in his local community activities. It was only when he invited his brother-in-law over from the UK for Christmas that Scotland Yard was able to track him down and recapture him. They waited three months before making their move, in hopes that Wilson would lead them to Reynolds, the last unapprehended suspect. Wilson was arrested in February 1968. Many in Rigaud petitioned to allow his wife and five daughters to stay in the Montreal area.[1]

[edit] Aftermath

In May 2001 Biggs, 71, unable to meet mounting medical costs in Brazil after three strokes, voluntarily returned to England. Biggs was aware that he would be arrested and jailed. After detention and a short court hearing he was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

The story of Ronald "Buster" Edwards, who fled to Mexico but later surrendered to authorities, was dramatised in the 1988 film, Buster, which starred Phil Collins in the title role. Edwards became a flower seller outside Waterloo Station on release from prison. He committed suicide in 1994.

One of the post office carriages involved is preserved at Nene Valley Railway at Peterborough Cambridgeshire, and is being restored. The locomotive was no: D326 (later no: 40126). It was involved in a number of serious operating incidents throughout its operational life.^{[citation needed]}

The robbery was investigated by Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper of the Metropolitan Police (known in the press as "Slipper of the Yard"), who became so involved with its aftermath that he continued to hunt many of the escaped robbers in retirement. He believed Biggs should not be released after returning to the UK in 2001 and he often appeared in the media to comment on any news item connected to the robbery before his death on 24 August 2005 at the age of 81.

As a result of this robbery, the British Railways rule book was amended. If stopped by a red signal drivers had previously been required to contact the signaller by telephone - requiring them to leave the driving cab. After the change, drivers of mail trains were no longer allowed to leave the cab at any red signals and were to always keep their cab doors locked. These rules remained in force until the retirement of mail trains in the UK.

[edit] In popular culture

The book The Robbers' Tale by Peta Fordham tells the story. Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London 1965.
The robbery was mentioned in the 1965 film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Thunderball.
A comedy version was staged in the film The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery
The 1965 film, "Help!", featuring the Beatles, snidely references The Great Train Robbery during the scene "Scotland Yard".
The 1967 film Robbery starring Stanley Baker portrayed events similar to the Great Train Robbery.
The Sex Pistols recorded two songs (No One Is Innocent and Belsen was A Gas) with Ronald Biggs on vocals
The 1978 Book The Train Robbers by Piers Paul Read recounts a very detailed version of the story based on an exclusive account given by seven of the then-parolled robbers. The book reveals the funding source for the heist as former SS officer Otto Skorzeny and other Germans who had escaped to South America and other countries after the war. Published by W.H. Allen and Company, 1978. ISBN 0-397-01283-7
Paul Hardcastle released a song in 1985 titled "Just For Money" which is about the robbery.
In 1988 Buster Edwards experiences were made into the comedy-drama Buster, starring Phil Collins.
In 2005, on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, Karl Kennedy compared Paul Robinson to Ronnie Biggs.
A popular skit from the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore deals with the efforts to catch the criminals behind the robbery.
British group, Alabama 3, recorded a tribute to Bruce Reynolds about the robbery, 'Have You Seen Bruce Richard Reynolds' on which he appears, on their 2005 album, Outlaw.
American rock band, Mountain, recorded the song "The Great Train Robbery" on their Nantucket Sleighride album, circa 1971.

[edit] References

^ "The Great Train Robbery, 1963", Time (magazine). Retrieved on 2007-08-21. "The 15 thieves who held up the Royal Mail train between Glasgow and London on August 8, 1963 netted 120 bags packed with the equivalent of $7 million and were treated like folk heroes by the press and public. Although the operation took 15 minutes, it was not as smooth as people remember it. It wasn't non-violent, for one thing (the driver of the train was hit on the head and never fully recovered); nor was it carefully executed (the thieves left fingerprints everywhere). The case has lived on in memory because of the adventures of one of its minor players, Ronnie Biggs, whose escape from prison and long years of eluding justice were constant fodder for the British newspapers. Readers were fascinated that a small-time hoodlum could be part of the biggest heist in British history and the only one to get away with it. Biggs eventually gave himself up in 2001, returning voluntarily from Brazil to serve the 28 years remaining in his sentence. Despite pleas for leniency, Biggs remains incarcerated and in failing health."
^ "British Transport Police History: The Great Train Robbery", British Transport Police. Retrieved on 2007-07-25. "Late on Wednesday 7 August 1963 the "Up Special" train left Glasgow en-route for Euston. The train was a TPO (Travelling Post Office) and consisted of a number of carriages in which Post Office staff sorted the mail and parcels en-route to London. The second carriage from the front of the train was a HVP (High Value Package) where registered mail was sorted. Much of this consisted of cash. Usually the value of these items would have been in the region of £300,000 but, because there had been a Bank Holiday weekend in Scotland, the total on the day of the robbery was £2.3 million. (About £30 million today)"
^ Patrick Bellamy. "Ronald Biggs & the Great Train Robbery", Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-07-25. "'The Great Train Robbery' of 1963 was a daring crime that had more in common with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid than a band of small-time London criminals. It not only captivated the world's media and public, it also succeeded in latertransforming one of the gang, Ronald Arthur 'Ronnie' Biggs, into a folk hero despite his minor role in the whole robbery."
^ "Historic fiver’s up for sale". Retrieved on 2007-11-01.
^ "Great Train Robber Escapes from Jail.", BBC. Retrieved on 2007-08-12. "A massive manhunt is underway across Britain after one of the so-called Great Train Robbers escaped from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham. Charlie Wilson, 32, was apparently freed by a gang of three men who broke into the jail in the early hours of the morning."