WEBVTT - How The Great Train Robbery Worked 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:04.080 Welcome to you stuff you should know from House Stuff 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:12.640 Works dot Com to too and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:17.479 I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bright, there's Jerry Uh. 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.600 And you put all of us together with a couple 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:25.200 of microphones, a crummy ikea lamb and uh you will, 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.840 and a headful of nose juice, you get stuff you 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.680 should know. That's right, stuff you should knows juice. Oh girl, 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.280 how's it going, buddy? Besides the obvious under the weather 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.800 and nests of you, I predict this is the last one. Great. 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.760 I'm gonna be back to good as new by the 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.159 next time we record. Yeah, we're going to Vancouver and 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.199 you'll get some of that good Canadian air air in 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.360 your body, and the pine air it's healing. Yeah. Properties, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.600 I'll get pine and flannel and ocean like in my 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:03.200 in my faith and and moose yeah, moose hair. Yeah. 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.600 That's so if you wal wadded all into a ball 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:10.320 and sniff it, it takes care of everything. That's right. 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:15.240 What the world are we talking about? I don't know. Uh, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.160 we're talking about trains, It's right. We're talking about a 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.280 specific train, Chuck. We're talking about a specific train at 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.119 a specific moment in place and time that all came 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.880 together to become known as the Great Train Robbery. Right, 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.560 did you know? Did you commission this article? I did not. 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.959 Did you know about it already? Some? Or yeah? I 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.360 mean I a little bit, but um not as like 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.720 obviously as much. After I researched and I watched a 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.080 couple of documentaries, and uh was looking for a great 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.200 awesome movie. But I don't think there really is a 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.520 great awesome movie about this yet, which is surprising. I 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.480 think they did, like BBC did one, and I think 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.680 Sean Connery did one that was loosely I think other 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.400 things were loosely based, but like the Taking of Pelham one, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.520 two three, Yes, exactly, that's a good movie. Did you 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.960 the original? Of course? Yeah? Did you watch The Tale 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.720 of Two Thieves? Is that one of the documentaries you watched? No? 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.480 I don't think that's out to the public yet unless 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.440 I just haven't seen it. I think it's new this year. Yeah, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.720 it seems like it's two thousand fourteen. Yeah, I want 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.360 to see it. But there are no shortage of YouTube 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.480 BBC docks because they love it, and I learned a 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.440 lot of new words watching them. Yeah, like um what 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:32.200 oh like, um, instead of crooked, someone has bent, like 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.000 a bent solicitor, I figured out was a crooked solicitor. 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.480 And a cosh is a like a like a billy 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.240 club and you can cash somebody like the train conductor 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.840 was cosht. Yeah. Yeah, there were just a bunch of 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.400 cool terms that I had to kind of figure out 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:53.399 what they meant an American in my English. Yeah, so, um, 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.400 I had I heard the words great train and robbery together, 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.840 but I didn't know anything about. I think there was 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.920 another one, an older great train robbery from the hundreds. 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:08.919 There's one in eighteen fifty five where a train traveling 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.120 from London to Paris or vice versa had a bunch 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.960 of gold bullion on it and it got hit. That 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.800 was legendary. But apparently this was the biggest train highest 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.720 since then, more than a hundred years later. Yeah, it 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:24.560 was a big deal and it was sort of Jesse 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.600 James style. That's why it became uh one of the 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.360 crimes of the century. Um in England for sure. I 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.600 mean it was huge in the press, and these guys 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.240 that knocked off this train became these kind of weird 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.120 working class heroes. Well, one of them became the symbol 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:48.320 for the anti establishment, which one, uh what was his name? Um, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.120 the the the one who made off for years and 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:55.360 years Yeah, he Um, he was on the lamb for 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.880 like thirty years, so he was super famous. Yeah, and 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:00.160 they knew where he was and they couldn't get to him, 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.120 which we'll talk about. But he, you know, became like 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.560 the this folk hero of the anti establishment, saying vocals 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.920 on lots of like punk records. Yeah. Yeah. I saw 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.480 in both documentaries that had a bunch of interviews, like 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.320 on the street interviews from the time, like with regular 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:19.560 upstanding citizens like who side are you on? And a 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:21.600 lot of them were like, well, I feel ashamed to 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.719 admit this, but I kind of think these guys really 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.760 took it to the cops on this one, and they 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.720 thought they were ingenious and um even though the plan, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.200 as we'll get to really was pretty uncomplicated. Yeah, it 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.159 wasn't nearly as clever as it was made out to be. Well, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.600 let's talk about the plan. So there was this idea 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.839 who had who had the idea, the original idea. I 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.080 believe his last name was Fields. He was the guy 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.880 who originally had the idea and approached several people criminals 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.200 for partnership, and they all turned him down except for 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.160 this a safe cracker by the name of Goody. Okay, 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.200 So Goody had a friend who was His name was 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:07.400 Bruce Reynolds and I guess he Um, he originally funded 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.440 the whole thing. Yeah. Well, they were in a gang 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.680 called the Bowler Hat Gang in London. No, right, I 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:15.640 don't think we've said this. We've made reference to like 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.440 the Wild West and train robberts and everything. This is 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.120 the nineteen sixties, Yeah, like the early nineteen sixties that 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.800 this is going on. Yeah, and the Bowler Hat Gang 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.920 was Um, they dressed in bowler hats and suits and 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.960 they had done some crimes and they were mainly career 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.680 criminals and they actually even uh, they had to press 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.320 his attention and they actually tried to rob a train 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:39.960 at first, but it didn't work so well and they 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.080 got away, and but that they had sort of a 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.640 not a trial room, but they legitimately tried to knock 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.839 off another train. So is that when they realized that 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.040 they needed to expand their rank and file. Yeah, they 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.240 realized that we don't know trains and we don't know 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:56.320 how to stop them, So we need to get some 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.800 train guys, right, So the Bowler Coast Gang, who is 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.640 guests led by Bruce Reynolds, right yeah, Bowler Hat the 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.320 Bowler Hat Gang they got with the South Coast Gang 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.039 I think, yeah, the South Coast Raiders. So they and 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.800 this is I mean, those are some great gang names, 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.919 by the way, but the Bowler Hat Gang and the 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.800 South Coast Raiders, who were led by a dude named 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.920 Buster Edwards, right yeah, and Tom Wisby he was one 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.600 of the main guys. Whitney. Sorry. So those guys all 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.200 got together and they said, we got this great idea. 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.560 We need your people together to come help us. We're 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.159 gonna rob a train. And they're not just any train. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.520 There was one specific train that this gang targeted, and 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.000 for good reason. It was called the Up Special. And 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.279 the Up Special had been running since the thirties between Glasgow, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:49.560 Scotland and London, right and uh. It would run every 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.640 night and it was basically like a mail sorting facility 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.280 on wheels like it was pretty clever. They thought, well, 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.400 we'll take all the mail from Glasgow that's going to 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.520 London and we'll sort it along the way. So there 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.360 was twelve cars in the Glasgow Special or the up 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.920 Special UM and a diesel engine. So it's a pretty 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.520 simple train. Uh. And it didn't run for years and 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.520 years without incident, for for like a hundred and fifty 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:20.360 almost a hundred and fifty years. Yeah. And and and it 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.960 wasn't loaded with guards and cops. I mean, it was 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.960 a bunch of postmen basically, which is a really it's 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:31.120 really weird then that the banks would trust their money 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:36.800 that we're moving from Glasgow to London to this postal 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:41.320 train that we had like no security, no armed guards, 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:45.880 no no alarms until the early sixties, um on the 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.360 train cars themselves. But yet every night the banks would 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:55.040 empty their um their accounts into this train and say, 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.400 good luck, get into London. Like here's a bunch of 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.960 huge sacks of money. We're gonna put it on the 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.280 train and you're going to sort it along the way. 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.200 They had an inside man who and this is one 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.080 of those weird stuff you should know things, you know, 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.680 how there's all these weird correlations in the news. I 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.880 picked out this article two days ago, and two days 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.000 ago it was announced who the identity of the inside 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.560 man was. Yeah, the last great mystery of this thing 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:26.080 from the sixties. Yeah, was just unraveled like two days ago. 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:27.920 And I didn't even know it at the time. I 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.559 found out afterwards. But the code name was ulster Man, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.240 and it was always believed to be someone on the 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:40.280 inside of the of the train and post industry to 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.959 give him information like you know, the train is superloaded 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.520 on this particular night because of a bank holiday. And 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:51.959 uh he was named by Gordon Goody as Patrick McKenna. Yeah. 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.640 In the documentary A Tale of Two Thieves, they hand 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.040 a picture of Patrick McKenna too. Goody and says that 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.800 Ulsterman and apparently he like kind of like gets visibly 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.760 uncomfortable because he's kept this guy's identity secret. He was 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.120 the last person alive for fifty years to to know 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.720 who this person was. There were two other people who knew. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.360 They both died before good Patrick McKenna died years back, 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.439 and there was just this one man who swore he 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.079 would take the secret whose grave and he he named 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.959 them he had fingered him. These guys were really good 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.959 at keeping secrets over the years. They wore bowler hats 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.440 for goodness thing. Uh So McKenna's family was super surprised 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.920 to hear all this. Police never suspected him, and um, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.800 they basically think that this guy felt bad afterward and 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:40.600 never even spent the money and gave it to the 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.120 Catholic Church like slowly over the years his cut is 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:46.960 what the family is saying. But um, it sounds like 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.600 an ulsterman kind of thing to do. Yeah, you know, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.160 he's a good guy. Well before he had his change 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.560 of heart, he was the inside man that helped the 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.480 gang figure this out. Yeah, he actually recommended change the 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.000 day to get a bigger take and it was then 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:05.960 it worked. Can you can you explain this to me? 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.760 So a bank holiday and it's the same thing here 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:10.680 in the US. It's like a like a day the 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.600 banks are closed. They have official bank holidays. There's a 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.200 banking Act in the UK from the nineteenth century that 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:23.120 designated certain days as bank holidays. Um, what I don't 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.560 understand is why is there so much more money the 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.200 day after bank holiday. It's like everybody waited to do 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.640 their banking business that they would have done on Monday 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.840 on Tuesday, Like there's so many more people, are so 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.560 many more transactions that didn't get to be done on 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.520 that Monday that were carried out on the Tuesday. That 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.960 that that's why there's so much more money. I don't know. 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.680 Maybe it's that the because of the holiday, they didn't 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.760 uh do their deposits and and like make the money 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.959 leave the bank like they normally would, so it was compounded. 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.079 I guess. So that is like double the amount of 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.160 money as usual because they didn't do their drop on 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.440 the holiday or something. Yeah, but they didn't conduct any 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.400 business on the holiday, so there wouldn't have been more 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.080 money to accumulate than usual, you know what I'm saying. Well, 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:12.760 if it came after a weekend, though, maybe it was 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.880 like all of that weekend's deposits had gathered up. I 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.360 don't know. That's a good question, Okay. The point is 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.079 is that a lot more money than usual, a lot 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.160 more usually this um. This train car, the Up Special, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.240 carried about three hundred thousand pounds UM between Glasgow and 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:33.440 London each each night. On this particular night, the night 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.360 of August eighth, nineteen sixty three, which was Thursday early 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.360 wee hours of a Thursday, UM, it was carrying something 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:47.120 like two point six million pounds, which today in dollars 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.480 would be worth about fifty million. I think it's I 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.000 looked it up and it was like doubled that million. Well, yeah, 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:59.000 because you're going from nineteen and from pounds to dollars, 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.440 I might be off, but I got sixty nine million 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.640 pounds today or a hundred and eleven million dollars US, 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.600 let's kill with that. That's way better either way. Two 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.040 point six million pounds was a ton of money for 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.320 a high speck. Then it was like really really a 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:20.120 lot of dough even splitting it among fifteen guys. Yeah, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.679 and they didn't even necessarily split it evenly. There were 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.040 the core gang who were carrying this thing out and 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.000 they all got even split. But they're also accomplices. In 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.160 addition to Ulsterman, there's Mr One, Mr Two, and Mr Three. Yeah, 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.600 and those are the their names. So because they were 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:38.880 never brought to justice, there were three that just got 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.319 away with it even though they knew who they were. Supposedly, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.480 they didn't have evidence to go pick them up. So 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.400 like the identities of the three guys that got away, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.199 they they think they knew who they were the whole time. 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.760 Really can, I mean one of them is named John Weeder, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.800 he got away. I'm not sure. Was he one of 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:56.680 the one, two or three he was, Yeah, he was 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.240 the one who got the safe house for the gang. Yeah, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.319 well he worked with Fields to get the safe house. 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.320 Uh well, let's let's back up here. Okay, we're so excited, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.480 we're getting happen. So he mentioned that they recruited another 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.160 gang that knew how to work with trains, knew how 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.520 to stop trains, and um, what they did was they 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.360 brought this guy on board who had a this elderly 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.880 man who was a train driver. His name was Peter, 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:22.760 and Peter's job once they stopped the train was to 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.400 get it to where the drop point the exchange point 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.040 was in case, you know, because the train stops at 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:33.120 the red light, which they very awkwardly wired the red 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:34.760 light to turn on and they just covered the green 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.160 light with gloves. But it worked. They stopped the train 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:39.680 and still needed to get it down the track to 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.199 the exchange point. And this old man gets on board 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:43.920 and he's like, I don't know how to undo this 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.720 new handbrake. So he was useless. And so the guy 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.400 Bigs who became this criminal legend for evading the law 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.120 for so many years. Apparently his only job was to 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.320 find somebody who could drive the train, and he screwed 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.800 it up. So the guy who was supposed to drive 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.520 the train got thrown off the train, and they got 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.040 the original train engineer, the one whose job it was 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.240 to actually drive the train under normal circumstances, and made 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.320 him drive another mile and a half to this bridge. Yeah, 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.600 and that was Jack Mills. And this is a very 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.240 important detail. He was, like you said, the conductor and 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.200 two guys jumped on the train at the very front 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.960 there and uh coshed him, which is smacked him on 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.120 the head a bunch with this billy club. I thought 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.160 it was a crowbar Wells and iron cash, which is 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.640 English for crow bar, I guess. And this was a 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.280 big point because, um, for a lot of reasons. One 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.840 and that it was why the justice ended up coming 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.640 down so harshly on them, because they were apparently way 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.000 more violent than they needed to be with this guy. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.640 And the public perception of these guys is working class 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.120 heroes doesn't jibe with the violence because they weren't. You know, 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.800 the English still aren't really into violence as a whole. No, 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.640 especially if you're the bowler hat gang. Yeah, like you do. 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.880 You dressed nicely and you conducted your business, your criminal business, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.560 like gentleman. Uh. And you didn't need to beat this 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.880 old guy up. He was elderly, nearing retirement. And his 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.480 family says that the robbers still say today that like, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.080 he wasn't beating up nearly as bad as they say. 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.080 And the family is like, no, he never fully recovered 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.000 and died of cancer. But um, about seven years later, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.400 I think he died of leukemia. Yeah, but they they 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:28.960 say he he had headaches for the rest of his 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:30.840 life and he was just not the same man. Yeah. 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.040 You can't do that to somebody. You can't do that 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.280 someone and and like you said, that changed absolutely everything. 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.000 Um good. He uh. The the guy who's really the 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.480 brains behind this whole operation, he uh. He wrote a 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:45.840 book a few years back before he died, and he 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:47.920 named he said it was either Buster Edwards or a 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.680 guy named James Hussey who was the one who coshed 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:55.160 the poor conductor. Yeah, and supposedly Hussy who was brought 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.280 in as a heavy as some muscle. Supposedly at his 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.640 deathbed he said that it was him who cashed the guy. 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.360 And uh, but there are other people that say, including 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.400 Jack Mills's son, who said, no, my father told me 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.600 who it was and it wasn't him. This guy is 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.320 just doing that that robber thing where you still cover 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.560 for your people, so like on his deathbed, he was 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.760 still trying to cover for the real guy. And I 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:19.680 don't know if we'll ever know for real if it 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.320 was him or the other dude while lying on your deathbed. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.160 Yeah that's not okay, No, that never happens. Yeah, that's 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.360 where you're supposed to be the most troops. Like, yeah, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:34.160 they I mean they take deathbed confessions like as like 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.480 completely legitimate in courts. Yeah, that's where you're supposed to 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:42.760 look at your wife and say, I never really loved you. Wow, 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.560 that's terrible. Could you imagine? I think that was in 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.200 a movie. Once you thought it was gonna be some 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.200 tender moment and he was like, I never really loved you. 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.080 I think I know what you're talking about. The War 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.880 of the Roses where like they're both laying there dying 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.600 and Michael Douglas goes to like put his arms around 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:03.480 That's when I it's a great movie. Um No, I 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.720 don't think anybody's done that. Okay, So Roger Cordry is 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.760 the guy's name who came up with the idea to 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.920 fix these train signals. Uh. And he was an associate 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.840 of Buster Edwards. And if you had ever seen a 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.600 movie Buster with Phil Collins, I was that who it's about. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:26.520 That's who it's about. Sort of like a working class criminal, 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.600 like criminals back then. We're kind of revered in certain 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:34.840 circles in England's weird two Hearts beaten in. Just was 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:41.399 that from that movie? Okay, alright, so after this break, uh, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:43.560 we were going to talk a little bit more about 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:49.600 how it went down and what happened right after. So Chuck, 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.919 we've got the Bowler Hat Kang and the South Coast 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.160 Raiders coming together for one huge heights that's worth about 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.960 a hundred million dollars in today's money, or or how 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.480 that they're hitting the up special. Just this crotchety old 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:08.800 twelve car train moving along through the night from Scotland 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:13.800 to London. Right, And so the the gang messes with 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.200 the lights. They put a glove around the green light 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.679 and managed to turn on the red lights. So the 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.359 train comes to the stop, they all board the train. 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.520 They hit the conductor over the head, huge mistake. Uh. 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.680 They bring on the guy who's supposed to drive the train, 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.280 find out he can't drive the train, throw him off, 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.040 stand the conductor back up, probably give him a handkerchief 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.240 for his head, and say we need you to drive 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.320 this another mile and a half to the drop point, 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.639 which is called the Brittigo Bridge. Yeah, it was it 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.960 like a bridge overpass. Uh and uh. The guy does 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.920 that and they start offloading the loot. Yeah. They got 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.480 hundred and twenty of the hundred and eight sacks of 0:18:55.000 --> 0:19:00.439 cash money onto Um. They had this big and a 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.080 couple of land rovers. Yeah, could could have been? Could 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.240 this be any more stylish? They had land rovers a 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.880 getaway cars. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Um. You see why 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:11.520 people bought into all this stuff and thought it was cool, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.679 because I think it's cool right now. Um. And so 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.520 what they did they had prearranged a hideout and this 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.520 was fields His job as well, was he bought this 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.959 farm and farmhouse leather Slade farm, right, yeah, two And 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.720 it was sort of ingenious but ended up screwing them 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.679 in the end because the idea was within thirty minutes 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.760 of this robbery, they have effectively disappeared off the face 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.320 of the earth. Well, they stopped the train and got 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.360 it to the bridge and offloaded more than a ton 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:44.600 of money. Yeah, two tons of two and a half 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.439 tons of money in fifteen minutes. Yeah. And they were 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.479 back in their hideout in another fifteen So by the 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.240 time this thing was reported, they were gone and in 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.760 this farmhouse like with the windows shut and the shades drawn. 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.800 But that also kind of screwed them because before they 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.879 left the train, they said, all right, no one moves 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.840 for thirty minutes. And so the cops here this and 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.119 they went, oh, well that they're probably within a thirty 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.360 mile radius. And then and so they put this out 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:16.880 on the news. We know that they're within a thirty 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.480 mile radius, and we're gonna start camvasing the area. They 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.240 get word of this there within twenty eight miles and 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:26.080 they go, well, crap, they're gonna find us. And they 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.040 also said it was sort of a city boys move 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.639 to think you can hide out in the country like that. Um, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.520 And this one guy in the documentary was like, no, 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.040 out in the country, you get noticed if you're fifteen 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.480 guys in a farmhouse. That was their undoing. A neighbor said, 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.720 there's a lot more people at this old rambling old 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.719 farm and they're all wearing bowler hats for some reason, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.359 at least half of them are. Um, there's something fishy 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.520 going on. So when the when the word got out 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.639 that this train had been hit, this guy came forward 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.359 and said, you guys should go check this farm out. Well, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.200 the guys weren't only at this farm for the half 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.359 hour after the heist. They've been there for like eight days, 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.080 waiting for the day to come, getting ready, um, eating 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:14.800 things that required catchup. Playing Monopoly. Yeah, uh, played a 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.760 lot of Monopoly with their real money. Yes, they they 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.280 thought that was just a fun thing to do. Hilarious. Um. 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.520 And they did go to the trouble of like wiping 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.159 down a lot of the stuff, but they left a 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.080 lot of stuff behind, including the Monopoly game, including the 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.560 catchup bottle, and a lot of other stuff that had 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.639 prints on it. Well, yes, because Fields was supposed to 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.680 get a guy to go torch the place. Yeah, that's 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:38.240 what I thought, was like, why wouldn't you just burn 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.800 the place down? That was the plan And apparently the 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.720 guy never did it, and um, they ended up getting 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:45.520 out of there a few days early. They left five 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.600 days into it because they obviously heard the news that 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.600 they were canvasing the area, so they left quicker than 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.440 they wanted to. And um, like you said, left a 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:56.960 lot of stuff behind because they thought it was gonna 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.320 be torched. Their plan was to lay low there for 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.920