Nearly 53 years ago, on a quiet piece of track somewhere in Buckinghamshire, a Royal mail train was held up by a gang of 15 men, robbing it of the large quantity of cash it was hauling to London.
The second carriage from the front of the train was a High Value Package carriage, 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).
The Great Train Robbery occurred in the early hours of August 8, 1963, at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, close to Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England, when £2.6 million was stolen from a Royal Mail train travelling from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line.
Here is how all happened:
Planning
The plan to intercept and rob the overnight Glasgow to London mail train was based on information from an unnamed senior security officer within Royal Mail who had detailed knowledge of the amounts of money carried and other information of train. The raid was devised over a period of months by a core team. This gang, although very successful in the criminal underworld, had virtually no experience in stopping and robbing trains, so it was agreed to enlist the help of another London gang called The South Coast Raiders. The final gang who took part in the raid comprised a total of 16 men.
Stopping the train
Just after 03:00 on 8 August, the driver, Jack Mills from Crewe, stopped the train on the West Coast Main Line at a red signal light at Sears Crossing, Ledburn, between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington. The criminals had altered the signal by covering the green light and attaching a battery to power the red light. As a signal stop was unexpected at this time and place, Whitby climbed down from the cab to call the signalman from a line-side telephone, only to find the cables had been cut. As he returned to the train he was overpowered by one of the robbers. Meanwhile, gang members entered the engine cabin.
Taking the Train to the Destination Planned
The robbers now had to move the train to Bridego Bridge approximately half a mile further along the track, where they planned to unload the money. One of the robbers had spent months befriending railway staff and familiarising himself with the layout and operation of trains and carriages.
Taking the money out
The train was stopped at Bridego Bridge, and the robbers' "assault force" attacked the 'high-value packages' (HVP) carriage. The staff were made to lie face down on the floor in a corner of the carriage. The robbers removed all but eight of the 128 sacks from the HVP carriage, which they transferred in about 15–20 minutes to the waiting truck by forming a human chain. The gang departed in their Austin Loadstar truck some 30 minutes after the robbery had begun and, in an effort to mislead any potential witnesses, they used two Land Rover vehicles, both of which bore the registration plates BMG 757A.
Clean-up of plan
The gang headed along minor roads, listening for police broadcasts on a VHF radio, arrived back at Leatherslade Farm at around 04:30. Leatherslade was a run-down farm 27 miles (43 km) from the crime scene, between Oakley and Brill . It had been bought two months earlier as their hideout.
From listening to their police-tuned radio, the gang learned that the police had calculated they had gone to ground within a 30-mile (50 km) radius of the crime scene. As a result, the plan for leaving the farm was brought forward, comprehensive clean-up and set fire to the farm after the robbers had left was decided but failed to "torch" the farm. By the time they were ready to go back to the farm, however, they learned that police had found the hide-out.
Amount Stolen
The most immediate job for the Investigation Branch was to find out the exact amount of money stolen. This had several purposes, firstly to help track down the culprits, secondly to help curtail the speculative reports which were circulating, and thirdly the banks needed to know how much money they had lost. The task was a mammoth one covering no fewer than 663 High Value Packets posted by different banks in different towns and cities throughout England, Scotland and Wales. 27 High Value Packets were left behind in the coach and in one further sack recovered from the railway embankment. There was, however, 636 High Value Packets enclosed in the 120 sacks which were stolen by the robbers. The total amount stolen was £2,595,997.10s.0d.
Raising the alarm
The robbers had cut all the telephone lines in the vicinity, but one of the rail-men left on the train at Sears Crossing caught a passing goods train to Cheddington, where he raised the alarm at around 04:20. The first reports of the robbery were broadcast on the VHF police radio within a few minutes.
Investigation
A huge police investigation was launched, run by the Flying Squad at Scotland Yard and senior detectives from the Buckinghamshire Police. The officer in overall command was Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper.
British Transport Police had a small role to play in the investigation, mainly conducting enquiries, obtaining lists of staff and suspects.
Arrestment
A nearby resident of farm where they are staying became suspicious of the comings and goings at the farm and advised the police. The robbers had wiped away many fingerprints, but police lifted some from a Monopoly game board and a ketchup bottle.These fingerprints and other enquiries led to the offenders and one by one they were arrested. They all eventually appeared in court. On 15 April 1964 the proceedings ended with the judge describing the robbery as "a crime of sordid violence inspired by vast greed" and passing sentences of 30 years' imprisonment.
Prison escapes
On August 12, 1964, Charlie Wilson, part of the gang who pulled off the 1963 Great Train Robbery, one of the biggest heists of its kind, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England. Several men broke into the maximum-security facility to free Wilson. Wilson's escape was yet another dramatic twist in the train robbery saga. He eluded police for several years before being recaptured in Canada on January 24, 1968.
The most famous of the Great Train Robbers was Ronnie Biggs, who broke out of Wandsworth Prison in July 1965 by climbing a wall. The escape was planned by recently released prisoner, with the assistance of two other ex-convicts, with support from Biggs's wife, Charmian. The plot saw two other prisoners interfere with the warders, and allow Biggs and friend Eric Flower to escape. Biggs changed his appearance with plastic surgery and eventually moved to Brazil. He was discovered there by British authorities in the 1970s, but Brazilian law made it impossible for Biggs to be extradited. As a result, he became a tabloid hero in Britain.
The conclusion
It must be said that the Great Train Robbery was brilliantly planned and executed. Apart from the attack on the train driver it was non-violent and no firearms were used. The raiders managed to steal much more money than they had planned and perhaps it was the greed in sharing all the money out which led to them being careless and leaving so many fingerprints behind, sealing their own fate.
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