The Great Train Robbery

At 7 p.m. on August 7, 1963, the mail train departed from Glasgow Central Station. Its destination was Euston Station in London. The train was hauled by a diesel-electric locomotive. The train consisted of 12 carriages and carried 72 Post Office staff who sorted mail.

At Glasgow, the mail was loaded on the train. The second carriage behind the engine was used for transporting valuables including large quantities of money and registered parcels¹. Usually the value of these things was about £ 300, 000. But on the day of the robbery the sum total was £ 2.6 million (£ 30 million today).

At just after 3 a.m. the driver Jack Mills stopped the train at a red signal at Ledburn, a small station. He had no idea that the robbers had covered the green signal light and connected a six-volt battery to power the red signal light. The locomotive’s second man, 26-year-old David Whitby, climbed down from the cab to call the signalman from a signal-post² telephone; but he found out that the cables had been cut. Upon returning to the train, he was thrown down the embankment of the railway track. The five postal workers in the second carriage were tied up.

The robbers (a 15 strong gang from London led by Bruce Reynolds) now faced a problem. They needed to move the train to a place where they could load the money onto their truck. They wanted to do so at a bridge half a mile further along the track. The gangsters decided to use an experienced train driver to move the train from the signals to the bridge after uncoupling the unnecessary carriages. However, the person they selected was unable to operate mainline diesel locomotives because he only drove shunting locomotives. It was quickly decided that Jack Mills himself should move the train to the stopping point near the bridge. Initially, Mills did not want to move the train, but one of the gangsters struck him on the head.

At the bridge, the robbers unloaded 124 sacks, which they transferred quickly from the carriage to the truck by forming a human chain. The gang departed 30 minutes after the robbery had begun. To mislead any potential witness in addition to their truck they used two Land Rover vehicles both of which had the registration plates BMG 757 A.

They headed along back roads and arrived at an old farm 27 miles from the crime scene. They had bought this farm two months earlier. There they began counting the proceeds of the robbery. 2.6 million pounds were stolen in used £ 1, £ 5 and £ 10 notes.

Investigation, capture and trial

At 5 a.m. the police arrived at the crime scene where they took statements from the driver and postal workers. One member of the gang had made the mistake of telling the postal staff not to move for half an hour, so their hideout could not be more than 35 miles away. The police did a search of all places near the crime scene, but failed to find any evidence of the crime.

The Postmaster General ³ offered a £ 10, 000 reward to “the first person giving information about the persons responsible for the robbery”. Finally, the old farm was found where the policemen discovered the truck used by the robbers, the Land Rovers, a large quantity of food, bedding, sleeping bags, Post Office sacks, registered parcels, and fingerprints of the robbers.

Thirteen of the gang members were arrested. The trial of the robbers began on January 20, 1964, lasted 51 days and included 613 exhibits and 240 witnesses. On April 15, 1964, the sentences of 30 years imprisonment were passed on seven members of the gang. Others received shorter sentences.

Notes: ¹registered parcel – ценная посылка;

²signal post – светофорная мачта;

³Postmaster General – министр почт.

Ex. 4. Answer the questions to the text.