Great Train Robbery

 

The Great Train Robbery took place in Buckinghamshire, England, on August 8, 1963, and became one of the most famous crimes in British history. A total of £2.3 million was stolen, most of it in used bank notes. To the outrage of the nation, the bulk of this money was never recovered. (Today, the equivalent amount would be about £14 million.) One of the most remarkable aspects of the heist was that no guns were used; however, although it was often painted as a victimless crime, it was not: during the heist, the train driver was hit over the head with an iron bar, which left him bruised and bleeding. To the delight of the tabloid press, who saw the robbery as an exciting adventure story, the fifteen-strong gang of London criminals who had hijacked the train, led by Bruce Reynolds, made a successful getaway, and later hid out at nearby farmhouse. Here, they passed the time by playing the board game Monopoly, and ironically, it was this that proved to be their downfall: their fingerprints on the paper money were later discovered by police, and led to the identification and arrest of thirteen members of the gang.

 

Heist at the bridge

 

The train that the robbers made their target was a ‘travelling post office’ train, or TPO, that was operated by the Royal Mail on the London to Glasgow line. The plan had been initiated by Bruce Reynolds, an antique dealer who drove an Aston Martin and liked to show off his wealth. Also prominent in planning the robbery and putting it into operation was John Wheater, a solicitor, who came from a middle-class background and was able to act as front man for the group. It was Wheater who rented the farmhouse where the gang hid out after the robbery. Another member was Buster Edwards, a con man who had had a previous career as a boxer; Phil Collins later played Edwards in the film Buster, based on the robber’s life. Charlie Wilson, a bookmaker, also featured in the gang, along with the ‘brawns’ of the operation, Gordon Goody and Jimmy Hussey. Also part of the gang was Ronnie Biggs, a junior member with a fairly insignificant role, who was later to become one of the most notorious Great Train Robbers when he escaped from prison.

Bruce Reynolds made it his business to study the comings and goings of the postal trains in and out of London. He also managed to get hold of information concerning large amounts of cash that were occasionally carried on the trains. He chose a spot to hold up the train, near a bridge known as Bridego Bridge, which was situated outside Cheddington in the county of Buckinghamshire. This was a quiet place, and it was thought that the train would slow down as it came to the bridge, so that the robbers could flag it down and climb aboard. Another advantage to the spot was that it was near a military base; large supply trucks were often to be seen on the roads nearby, so the robbers’ truck would not seem particularly conspicuous as it drove away from the train loaded with money.

 

Train driver attacked

 

In the early hours of August 8, 1963, the robbers drove to the spot and set up the ambush. It was a few minutes after three o’clock in the morning when the raid began. Dressed as railway men, wearing overalls, the gang rigged up some temporary signals on the line, using large batteries to power the lights. As the train driver, Jack Mills, neared the bridge, he noticed a red ‘stop’ light, and slowed the train down to a halt. David Whitby, a fireman, got out of the train onto the track to see what was going on. Buster Edwards, one of the robbers, pulled him off the track and into the scrub nearby. Once Whitby realised what was going on, he offered no resistance and was left by the side of the track. However, Mills, the train driver was not so lucky. When he got off the train, the robbers attacked him, hitting him over the head with an iron bar. Mills collapsed by the side of the track.

 

Hideaway farmhouse

 

Up to that point, the robbery had been committed without violence, as had been the plan. There had been no real need to attack Mills, but in a panic, the robbers had beaten him over the head. Next, they made another mistake. Ronnie Biggs had brought in a retired train driver to drive the train into a place where the mailbags of money could be easily shifted onto the robbers’ truck. But the elderly driver did not understand how the train worked, as the design had changed since the days when he was employed. Thus, Mills was brought back in to drive the train, even though he was injured.

Once the train was in position, the gang worked as quickly as they could, forming a human chain to unload over 100 sacks of money into the truck. Then they drove away, leaving Mills to his fate. They drove to their hideout at Leatherslade Farm, and here they sat tight until the fuss had died down, playing Monopoly and drinking cups of tea. However, the police were soon on their trail.

Eventually, the gang left the farmhouse, when they felt it was safe to do so. But they foolishly left their fingerprints all over the paper money on the board game. When the police raided the farmhouse, this gave them a very useful set of clues. Most of the gang members had been involved in crime before, and were well known to the police. It was a simple enough matter to identify the fingerprints and match them to the ones held on their records. In this way, thirteen members of the gang were caught. In a highly publicised trial, the robbers were brought to justice, convicted and sentenced on April 16, 1964.

 

Dramatic escapes

 

That was by no means the end of the story. Charlie Wilson and Ronnie Biggs were both imprisoned, but they later made dramatic escapes from jail. Wilson went to Montreal, Canada, and lived quietly there until he was tracked down via a telephone call that his wife made to her parents in the UK. Buster Edwards fled to Mexico, but gave himself up in the end. Bruce Reynolds went on the run for five years, but the law caught up with him and he served a ten-year prison sentence.

Ronnie Biggs had not played a large part in the Great Train Robbery, but eventually he became the most notorious member of the gang. After serving a year of his prison sentence, he escaped from prison by scaling a wall with a rope ladder. He underwent plastic surgery and travelled around the world, eventually settling in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with his Brazilian wife and child. Under Brazilian law, as the father of a Brazilian child, he could not be extradited to the UK, so he lived openly in Rio with them.

However, in later years, Biggs became seriously ill, and announced his intention to return to the UK. He had become tired of living abroad, with mounting health-care bills, and said that he was prepared to risk being imprisoned once he arrived in the UK. He was duly imprisoned when he arrived back, even though he had suffered several strokes and was in a very poor state of health.

 

The aftermath

 

The legacy of the Great Train Robbery makes sad reading. The train driver, Jack Mills, died from leukaemia in 1970. There was never enough evidence to convict any of the train robbers with the attack, so his case was never brought to court. Buster Edwards, on his release from jail, became a flower seller in Waterloo train station until he committed suicide in 1994.

Today, the Great Train Robbery is viewed in some quarters as an exciting adventure story involving colourful members of the London underworld, and in others as a rather shameful episode in which an unarmed man was brutally attacked for no reason. For many people, whether sympathetic to the robbers or not, it continues to hold a fascination. For years, the exploits of Ronnie Biggs and the other train robbers were constantly recounted in the tabloid press, while one of the detectives on the case, Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper (known as ‘Slipper of the Yard’) became so involved in it that he continued to try to track down the culprits long after he had retired from the police force.

One of the post office carriages that was targeted for the robbery was restored and went on display at Nene Valley Railway. As a result of the Great Train Robbery, the rule book of the British rail postal train services was changed, so that instead of climbing out onto the track at an unexpected red ‘stop’ signal and walking across the line to see the signalman, train drivers were directed to stay in their cabs with the doors locked. Had Jack Mills done that, the Great Train Robbery would quite probably never have happened.