One of 10,000 stories at the NRM
Mention the “Great Train Robbery” to most people in Britain and they will instantly default to 1963, when a gang held up the Royal Mail train between Glasgow and London. Such was the coverage of the heist, it made legends of robbers like Buster Edwards and Ronnie Biggs and was even turned into a movie.
But the very first Great Train Robbery dates from more than a century earlier. On May 15, 1855, the London-to-Dover night-mail service was robbed of £12,000 in gold bullion – the equivalent of £2.5 million today. Unlike the 20th-century robbery, this was a crime of stealth. The theft was only discovered when the boxes were opened at their final destination in Paris, revealing that the gold had been replaced by lead shot. Detectives finally cracked the case when the lover of one of the robbers told her story. It turned out that the four-strong gang, which included two railway workers, had stolen aboard the train, put the bullion in carpet bags after swapping it for the lead shot, and walked away with the loot at Dover.
Info
Address National Railway Museum, Leeman Road, York YO26 4XJ, +44 (0)844 815 3139, www.nrm.org.uk, nrm@nrm.org.uk | Public Transport On-site parking is available but pricey; Rawcliffe Park & Ride stops just outside | Hours Daily 10am–5pm| Tip If you have a passion for the golden railway age, head out of town to Pickering, where you can travel on a North Yorkshire Moors Railway train pulled by a restored steam engine.
Today this ingenious crime has largely been forgotten. But you can see the bullion box, complete with bag of lead shot, at the National Railway Museum in York.
A former European Museum of the Year, the NRM is best known for its showstopping engines, with exhibits including the Mallard and Flying Scotsman steam locomotives, and a bullet train from Japan. But the unsung treasure trove of the museum is the Warehouse, which is home to more than 10,000 rail-related objects on open display.
Items range from huge keystones removed from railway stations, to signs warning trainspotters to stay away, to model railway engines, to ephemera including tickets and letters. Regular tours of the Warehouse are led by expert staff members, who guide you to the most unusual and interesting objects. Just keep your eyes peeled for the bullion box.
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