How the Great Train Robbery Worked

On the night of August 8, 1963, a gang of thieves stole bank notes worth the equivalent of $50 million. Take a look at our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about the fact and fiction surrounding the great train robbery.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson. Joint today as always by none
other than Josh Clark. Hey, Candice, how are you? I'm

(00:21):
doing fabulous? How are you doing, Josh? I'm doing pretty good.
I'm doing good. I feel very connected to India right now.
I've been perusing the Times of India lately. You ever
read that news agency's website. I stick to the Times
in New York. Thank you. This is it's pretty good stuff.
It's like a whole different worldview, you know. But um,
apparently what I found out is that there's been a
rash of um daring and kind of ham fisted train

(00:44):
robberies over there lately. Have you heard anything about this?
Now you're gonna have to fill me in. Okay, So
the most recent one was on the pears Nath Express.
And basically this gang of miscreants that's the Times of
India's word for them, uh. And they're in there like
mid twenties, and they come board these passenger compartments of
these trains brandishing guns and lathis, which are like these

(01:05):
cane poles, used for beating um in the Indian martial
art of Lathey. Right, it looks like a sheep kind
of except without the hook. Imagine just the cane part
the pole. Yeah, and you would not want to be
beaten about the head or neck with one of these things. So,
which is why the people have been handing over their
cash and jewelry to these thugs um and so far

(01:27):
on the on the Parasnath Express, they made off with
about a hundred thousand rupees worth of stuff, which is
actually like forty dollars in America, which is pretty significant.
Hall and this isn't the only time that has happened.
This is the third one since may Um and they're
similar ms. They think it's the same people, but actually
one person died from it. But they weren't beat with

(01:48):
the Lathey. They were actually drugged. Uh And once they
started to go unconscious, um, they they were relieved of
their valuables. The problem is that the kid who was
drugged ended up lying. So if this gang of miscreants
gets found, they're going to be in a lot of trouble.
It sounds like it. It actually sounds pretty reminiscent of
one of my favorite crime stories of all time. The

(02:09):
Great Train Robber, that's one of my favorite too. That's
a that was a good hoist, wasn't it It was?
It was. That's a pretty memorable cast of characters there,
and the very famous mustachioed Scotland Yard detective Jack Slipper
forgive him, I know. Now, the guys in the Great
Train Robber used a tremendous amount of finesse, especially compared

(02:31):
to these Indian miscreants, would you agree? I agree? And
you know, an antique stealer and a hairdresser. Essentially, they
got their two gangs together, the Southwest Gang in the
Southeast Gang, and they they ended up making off with
about oh gosh, it was like two point six million
pounds sterling. Yeah. Today actually translates into like fifty million dollars, Yeah,

(02:52):
fifty million US dollars. It's the most significant train heist
since eighteen fifty five, when a training route from Harris
to London was was relieved of its gold bullion. Well,
it took a lot of work, like you said, to
pull this off, and it was worth it in the end,
and originally they thought that they could do it was
just a handful of men and no way. It took

(03:13):
a whole lot more fifteen total. And there were a
couple of accomplices to a man whose alias was Peter,
who was supposed to be the train driver. And then
there was a Mr One, Mr Two and a Mr three.
And I'm not going to bore you guys with all
the names because we would be here all day. Yeah, fifteen.
But the big mastermind, we think, was a man named

(03:35):
Bruce Reynolds, who was an antique stealer. I mean, these
are like the most interesting gang of bandits I've ever
heard of, Like you said, a hairdresser. One of them
was a club owner who used to be a boxer.
So these are these are your top of the line
interesting bandits basically right pretty much? Yeah. And so the
idea was that they were going to take this train

(03:55):
called the Up Special, which was essentially a mail carrier
for the most part. It was en route to London
from Glasgow. Yes, it had been a bank holiday weekend
in Scotland, and they were going to pretty much empty
the car of all of its contents, which totaled one
sacks of cash. It's just like a ton and a
half of money, yeah, it really is. And Their plan

(04:19):
was pretty ingenious. They decided that they would stop the train,
unlatched the car and the engine, and then drive it off.
I like the way that they stopped the train. One
of the guys um, you know, trains follow traffic signals
like cars do. Uh, So they went to one of
the signals that sears crossing I think is what it is, um,
and they actually used like black cloth or something to
cover up the green signal. Right, Roger Quadrey decided that

(04:42):
this would be the best way to work this. It
works almost like a stoplight, a regular stoplight at at
a traffic intersection with a red, green and yellow light. So,
like you said, he covered up the green with black paper,
and then he waited off in the distance, and when
the train came exactly at the place where they wanted
it to stop, he used a battery in a couple
of whi ours to rig it up and flash the
red light, which is just beyond cool. So the train stops,

(05:05):
and uh, these guys board and they're pretty much intent
on taking the money. So they actually hit the driver
over the head. Poor Jack Mills, yeah, he I saw
a picture of him in this in the article. And
how the Great train robbery worked and his head is
all bandaged. He looks a little confused. Yeah, it's it's
always kind of comical the way it's just wrapped around

(05:25):
his head. And even though it's a pretty significant injury. Yeah,
he couldn't work again after that. Yeah, but his was
the only injury and the whole robbery. Yeah, it's true.
And the funny thing was Peter uh the the accomplice
that you mentioned earlier, supposed to drive the train. Apparently
they found out during the heist that he had no
idea how to drive the train, so they actually tossed

(05:46):
him off of the train and they get the the
original driver, the guy who's supposed to be driving the
train back into the the the the I guess the
engine to drive it head injury and all, and what
he drove about a kilometer and a half, Yeah, one
and a half miles to Bridego Bridge. That was their
unloading spot and it was pretty close to this old

(06:08):
farmhouse called leather Slade Farm. And this is where the
men have been hiding out essentially right waiting for August eighth,
nineteen sixty three. And they had been having a pretty
good time at their safe house. They had you know, uh,
some food and some drinks and sleeping bags, and they
passed the time playing Monopoly. And here's where the story

(06:30):
gets kind of interesting and sort of goes down into
a urban legend. So so basically they unload the money
from the train and they go back to what was
it called leather Slade farm. The British have the coolest
names for their farms. But so they go back to
leather Slade and they divvy up the money and actually
apparently hung around for a while because they were playing

(06:51):
Monopoly with some of the stolen money, which you know,
I mean it makes a Monopoly game that much more
interesting when you're playing for actual cash. And then they
all go their separate ways, right they do they need
to take their share, they go their separate ways, and
within a day Scotland Yard is all over that and
they even appoint a special team called the Flying Squad

(07:13):
to investigate. It was headed up by Tommy Butler, who
had a reputations being the sort of this rough and tumble,
tough talking guy, and one of his famous investigators that
we mentioned earlier it was Jack Slipper, and Jack Slipper
became a household name over time, because although they caught everybody, right,
eventually all fifteen guys were caught, is that correct? Not

(07:34):
all at once? But weren't they all eventually caught? Not
all of them? Oh? No, okay, which one wasn't? I
can't tell you his exact name. Again, there's so many names,
but twelve or fifteen. Well, the thing is these guys,
even though they were hairdressers and antique dealers and club owners,
they were not content to just sit in prison being caught.
One of them did actually surrender a share and played guilty.

(07:55):
I think that was Cordrey, the guy who actually did
the signal um but arrest of them. Actually, when they
went to prison, a couple of them plotted to escape,
and one was actually very successful at it. This was
Ronnie Big. Yeah, he was not going to just roll.
Ronnie Biggs had his mind made up that he was
learned behold going to escape, and he sort of roused

(08:15):
the forces and was going to get his fellow great
train robber Rebels to go with him, and they backed out,
and so they were being held at this one prison,
and then they were transferred to Aylesburg, which is sort
of like the Alcatraz of Britain, and from there he
made his escape and a feuded a van and he
was on the land. Yeah, he went and got plastic
surgery to disguised his face, and he went off to

(08:37):
Australia first and then Brazil. And then Brazil very settled
because Brazil isn't big on extradition, no, no, so he
really got away with it for a while. And then
you know, it's really funny because back in two thousand one, uh,
he decided, you know what, I'm tired of being on
the run. Well, Jack Slipper actually had shown up at
his house in Brazil once and there was also a

(08:57):
kidnapping attempt by some X S A S guys. Uh,
And apparently he still remained in Brazil. But I guess
I imagine after those decades of of you know, having
to look over your shoulder and worry every time somebody
knocks at the door, that's got to wear you down,
especially considering these guys only made about eighty thousand pounds each, right, right.
And so he ended up turning himself in and he's

(09:20):
going to serve out the rest of his days in prison.
And it's actually a pretty nice little place. It's prison
for the elderly. So um. Plus he's got a new face.
He's got a new face. He had a new alias,
Michael Michael Haynes. Now he can be Ronnie Biggs again
and just and he's still around, right, He's still around.
And two thousand five, Jack Slipper died unfortunately, so he
outlived his his his his ness. That's a great word

(09:46):
for Here's the thing I had heard and I know
a decent amount about the Great Train Robbery. Here's the
thing I understand that they were actually caught because of
that Monopoly game. Is that fact or fiction? Is that right?
That is mostly fat? Oh? Yeah, yeah. The detectors were
able to lift fingerprints from the Monopoly game and a
couple of bottles of cat shots sloppy, sloppy exactly. They

(10:08):
should have been playing with those leather gloves that Roger
Querdry used when he rigged the wires, exactly, But they
weren't that careful, and so I got a couple of
the guys. It was really strange how it all boiled
down in the end, because some of them played a
hand and beating up Jack Mills and others were responsible
for arranging the safe house and others were responsible for
actually stopping the train. They all got approximately at average

(10:32):
outs here about thirty years each, but some of them
only got a handful of years. Others got even longer.
So yeah, thanks to good old Monopoly. A note to
you young miscreants robbing trains in India, do not play
monopoly while you're you know, divving up your money or
at the very least we're gloves if you do right.
Sounds good to me. And if you want to read

(10:55):
even more about the Great Train Robbery and get all
the fabulous British names that we glossed over and didn't mention,
you can read How the Great Train Robbery Worked on
the how staff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, VI is at how stuff
works dot com. Let us know what you think, send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.