WEBVTT - SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: How The Great Train Robbery Worked 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.560 Thanks for making it through our true crime playlist. We're 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:06.920 rounding this one out with a good old fashioned train 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:09.800 robbery for which we had across the pond to visit 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.880 our friends in the UK. Back in nineteen sixty three, 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.640 one of the all time great holdups was carried out 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.200 by a huge gang of men who relieved a British 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.000 mail train of a massive amount of money, and they 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.600 did it without guns. Most of the robbers were eventually caught, 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.640 but most of the money has never been found. All 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.680 aboard for the last episode in our playlist on the 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:37.520 Great train robbery. 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:45.760 Welcome to you Stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot com. 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.800 Chew, chew, and welcome to the podcast. Um, Josh Clark, 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:53.000 There's Charles W. Chuck Bright, there's Jerry uh and you 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.560 put all of us together with a couple of microphones 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.440 at crummy ikea. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.640 Lamb and you well and a head full of nose juice. 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.720 You get stuff you should know. That's right, stuff you 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:09.400 should nose juice. Oh grow, how's it going buddy? Besides 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.200 the obvious under the weather yess. 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.880 Of you, I predict this is the last one great. 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.840 I'm gonna be back to good as new by the 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:18.839 next time we record. 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.760 Yeah, we're going to Vancouver and you'll get some of 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.959 that good Canadian air air in your body and the 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.720 pine air. It's healing. Yeah, properties, I'll. 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.840 Get pine and flannel and ocean like in my in 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:31.760 my face. 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:37.520 And moose yeah, moose hair. Yeah, that's tough. 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:40.920 If you walk, wadd it all into a ball and 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:41.600 sniff it. 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:46.200 Uh huh. It takes care of everything. That's right. What 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.520 in the world are we talking about? I don't know. 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.160 Uh, we're talking about trains, that's right. We're talking about 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.920 a specific train, Chuck. We're talking about a specific train 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.760 at a specific moment in place and time. Yes, it 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.960 all came together to become known as the Great Train Robbery. 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:06.000 It's right. 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.000 Did you know did you commission this article? 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:09.640 I did not. 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:11.200 Did you know about it already? 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.400 Some? Or yeah? I mean a little bit, but not 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.440 as like obviously as much. After I researched and I 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.880 watched a couple of documentaries and was looking for a 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.160 great awesome movie. But I don't think there really is 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:24.640 a great awesome movie about. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:25.519 This yet, which is surprising. 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.320 I think they did, like BBC did one, and I 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.560 think Sean Connery did one that was loosely I think 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.040 other things were loosely based. 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.399 But like the Taking of Pelham one, two three. 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.880 Yes, exactly, that's a good movie. Did you the original? 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:40.800 Of course? Yeah? 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:42.960 Did you watch The Tale of Two Thieves? Is that 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:44.360 one of the documentaries you watched? 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.160 No, I don't think that's out to the public yet 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.600 unless I just haven't seen it. Okay, I think it's 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:50.239 new this year. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.080 Yeah, it seems like a twenty fourteen. 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:53.920 Yeah, I want to see it. But there are no 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:58.160 shortage of YouTube BBC docs because they love it. And 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.320 I learned a lot of new words watching them. Yeah, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:06.359 like what oh like instead of crooked, someone has bent, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.120 like a bent solicitor. I figured out was a crooked solicitor. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.600 And a cosh is a like a like a billy 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.680 club and you can cosh somebody. Oh wow, like the 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:17.880 train conductor was coshed. 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:18.800 Yeah. 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:20.720 Yeah. There were just a bunch of cool terms that 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.040 I had to kind of figure out what they meant. 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:29.760 An American gotcha in my English? Yeah, so I had. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.960 I heard the words great train and robbery together, but 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.280 I didn't know anything about it. 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.400 I think there was another one, an older great train 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:38.960 robbery from the eighteen hundreds. 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.760 There's one in eighteen fifty five, Yeah, where a train 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.960 traveling from London to Paris or vice versa had a 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.360 bunch of gold bullion on it and it got hit. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.480 That was legendary. But apparently this was the biggest train 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.720 heist since then, Yeah, more than one hundred years later. 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.080 Yeah. Yeah, it was a big deal and it was 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:03.480 sort of Jesse James style. That's why it became one 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.320 of the crimes of the century in England for sure. 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.240 I mean it was huge in the press, and these 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:13.080 guys that knocked off this train became these kind of 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:14.680 weird working class heroes. 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:19.200 Well, one of them became the symbol for the anti establishment, 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:24.600 which one oh what was his name, the one who 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:26.640 made off for years and years? 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.960 Oh yeah, see bigs. Yeah, he he was on the 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.440 lamb for like thirty years, so he was super famous. 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:34.800 Yeah, and they knew where he was and they couldn't 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:36.920 get to him, which we'll talk about, but he, you know, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.880 became like the this folk hero of the anti establishment, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.080 saying vocals on lots of like punk records. 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.040 Oh really like that? Yeah, yeah, I saw in both documentaries. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.240 I had a bunch of interviews, like on the street 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.480 interviews from the time, like with regular upstanding citizens, like 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.120 who side are you on? And a lot of them 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.280 were like, well, I feel ashamed to admit this, but 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.160 I kind of think these guys really took it to 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.200 the cops on this one. Yeah, and they thought they 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:05.599 were ingenious and even though the plan, as we'll get 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:10.080 to really was pretty uncomplicated. Yeah, it wasn't nearly as 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:11.960 clever as it was made out to be. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.080 Right, Well, let's talk about the plan. So there was 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.279 this idea who had the idea, the original idea. 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.320 I believe his last name was Fields. He was the 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:27.000 guy who originally had the idea and approached several people 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.120 criminals for partnership, and they all turned him down except 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.359 for this a safecracker by the name of Goodye. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.160 Okay, so Goody had a friend who was His name 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.560 was Bruce Reynolds, and I guess he originally funded the 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:43.039 whole thing. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.640 Yeah. Well, they were in a gang called the Bowler 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.120 Hat Gang in London. I know, right, I don't think 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:49.560 we've said this. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.240 We've made reference to like the wild West and Trained 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.520 Roberts and everything. This is the nineteen sixties. Yeah, like 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.000 the early nineteen sixties that this is going on. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.640 Yeah, And the Bowler Hat Gang was they dressed in 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.960 bowler hats and suits and they had done some crimes 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.040 and they were mainly career criminals and they actually even 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.800 they had the press's attention, and they actually tried to 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:14.640 rob a train at first, but it didn't work so 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.440 well and they got away, and but that they had 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.120 sort of a not a trial run, but they legitimately 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:21.440 tried to knock off another train. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.560 So is that when they realized that they needed to 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.159 expand their rank and file. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.039 Yeah, they realized that we don't know trains and we 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.080 don't know how to stop them, so we need to 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:32.520 get some train guys. Right. 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.600 So the Bowler Coast Gang, who is I guess led 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.400 by Bruce Reynolds, right, Yeah, Bowler Hat the Bowler Hat, 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.720 yeah gang they got with the South Coast Gang. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.279 I think, Yeah, the South Coast Raiders. 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.760 So they and this is I mean, those are some 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.240 great gang names. 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:48.080 By the way, totally great. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.040 But the Bowler Hat Gang and the South Coast Raiders, 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.839 who were led by a dude named Buster Edwards, right. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.320 Yeah, and Tom Wisby he was one of the main 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:58.640 guy or Whisney Sorry. 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.120 So those guys all got together and they said, we 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.719 got this great idea. We need your people to get 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.919 to come help us. We're gonna rob a train. And 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.160 they're not just any train. There was one specific train 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.640 that this gang targeted and for good reason. It was 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.080 called the Up Special and the Up Special had been 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:22.240 running since the eighteen thirties between Glasgow, Scotland and London, right, Yeah, 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.200 and it had run every night and it was basically 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.720 like a mail sorting facility on wheels. 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:31.520 Yeah, Like it was pretty clever. 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:33.920 They thought, well, we'll take all the mail from Glasgow 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.120 that's going to London and we'll sort it along the way. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.080 So there was twelve cars in the Glasgow Special or 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:45.720 the Up Special and a diesel engine, so it's a 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:46.520 pretty simple train. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.280 Yeah. And it had run for years and years, right 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:50.280 without incident, for. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.880 Like one hundred and fifty one hundred, almost one hundred 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:54.400 and fifty years. 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.800 Yeah, and it wasn't loaded with guards and cops. I mean, 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.000 it was a bunch of postmen basically. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.760 Which is a really it's really weird then that the 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:08.040 banks would trust their money that we're moving from Glasgow 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:12.160 to London, Yeah, to this postal train. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:12.560 Yeah. 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.480 Different that had like no security, no armed guards, no 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:22.320 alarms until the early sixties on the train cars themselves. 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:27.240 But yet every night the banks would empty their their 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.480 accounts into this train and say, good luck get into London. 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.400 Like here's a bunch of huge sacks of money. We're 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.560 gonna put it on the train and you're gonna sort 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:38.320 it along the way. 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:38.960 Exactly. 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.319 They had an inside man who And this is one 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.160 of those weird stuff you should know things, you know, 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.800 how there's all these weird correlations in the news. I 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.960 picked out this article two days ago, and two days 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.079 ago what was announced Who the identity of the inside 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:54.560 man was. 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:59.000 Yeah, the last great mystery of this thing from the sixties. Yeah, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.240 was just unwrapd like two days ago. 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.000 And I didn't even know it at the time. I 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:07.600 found out afterward. But the code name was Ulsterman, and 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:09.960 it was always believed to be someone on the inside 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:15.520 of the of the train and post industry to give 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.080 him information like you know, the train is super loaded 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.480 on this particular night because of a bank holiday. And 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.880 he was named by Gordon Goody as Patrick McKenna. Yeah. 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.720 In that documentary A tale of two thieves. They hand 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.160 a picture of Patrick McKennon to Goody and says that 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.880 ulsterman and apparently he like kind of like gets visibly 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.840 uncomfortable because he's kept this guy's identity secret. He was 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.440 the last person alive for fifty years to know who 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.720 this person was. There were two other people who knew. 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:51.480 They both died before Goody. Patrick McKenna died years back, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.520 and there was just this one man who swore he 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.400 would take the secret cheers grave and he named them 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:58.360 he had angered him. 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.800 These guys were really good keeping secrets over the years. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.560 They wore bowler hats for goodness. 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.120 So McKinnon's family was super surprised to hear all this. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:12.320 Police never suspected him, and they basically think that this 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.160 guy felt bad afterward and never even spent the money 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.200 and gave it to the Catholic Church like slowly over 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.480 the years. Oh yeah his cut, huh is what the 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.360 family is saying. But it sounds like an ulsterman kind 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.240 of thing to do. Yeah, you know, Lstie right, he's 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:26.720 a good guy. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.760 Well before he had his change of heart, he was 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.000 the inside man that helped the gang figure this out. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.199 Yeah, he actually recommended they change the date to get 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.560 a bigger take. Yeah, and it was and it worked. 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.240 Can you explain this to me? So a bank holiday 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.120 and it's the same thing here in the US. It's 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.800 like a day the banks are closed. Yea, they have 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.400 official bank holidays. There's a banking Act in the UK 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.800 from the nineteenth century that designated certain days as bank holidays. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:56.040 Yeah. 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.559 What I don't understand is why is there's so much 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.160 more money the day after a bank holiday. It's like 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.840 everybody waited to do their banking business that they would 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.439 have done on Monday on Tuesday. Like there's so many 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.920 more people or so many more transactions that didn't get 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.400 to be done on that Monday that were carried out 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.480 on the Tuesday. That that's why there's so much more money. 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.240 I don't know. Maybe it's that the because of the holiday, 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:29.880 they didn't do their deposits and like make the money 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.040 leave the bank like they normally would, so it was compounded. 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.160 I guess. So there was like double the amount of 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.240 money as usual because they didn't do their drop on 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:39.280 the holiday or something. 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.480 Yeah, but they didn't conduct any business on the holiday, 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.160 so there wouldn't have been more money to accumulate than usually. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:45.880 You know what I'm saying. 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:47.720 Well, if it came after a weekend, though, maybe it 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.480 was like all of that weekend's deposits, yeah, had gathered up. Okay, 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.400 I don't know. That's a good question. Okay. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:55.720 The point is, is this a lot more money than usual? 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.200 A lot more usually? This? This train car, the Up Special, 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.720 carried about three hundred thousand pounds between Glasgow and London 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:05.160 each each night. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:05.640 Yeah. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.080 On this particular night, the night of August eighth, nineteen 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:15.080 sixty three, which was Thursday, early wee hours of a Thursday, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.040 it was carrying something like two point six million pounds, 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:24.160 which today in dollars would be worth about fifty million. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.480 I think it's I looked that up and it was 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.600 like double that one hundred million. Well, yeah, because you're 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.000 going from nineteen sixty three to twenty thirteen and from 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:37.280 pounds to dollars. Yeah, I might be off, but I 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.280 got sixty nine million pounds today or one hundred and 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.040 eleven million dollars US, let's go with that. That's way 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.960 better either way. Two point six million pounds was a 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.760 ton of money for a highspec then. Yeah, it was 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.000 like really really a lot of dough. Yeah, even splitting 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:54.719 it among fifteen guys. 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.559 Yeah, and they didn't even necessarily split it evenly. There 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.960 were the core game who were carrying this thing out 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.560 and they all got even split. But there are also accomplices. 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.720 In addition to Ulsterman, there was mister one, Mister two, 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:08.520 and mister three. 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.680 Yeah, and those are their names. So because they were 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.960 never brought to justice, there were three that just got 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.400 away with it even though they knew who they were. Supposedly, 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.520 they didn't have evidence to go pick them up. So 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.640 like the identities of the three guys that got away, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.280 they think they knew who they were the whole time. 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.000 Really, I mean, one of them's named John Wheder. He 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:28.200 got away. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:30.120 I'm not sure I was he one of the one, 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:31.160 two or three he was? 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.040 Yeah, he was the one who got the safe house 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:33.640 for the gang. 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.280 Yeah, well he worked with Fields to get the safe house. Well, 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.520 let's let's back up here. Okay, we're so excited we're 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.160 getting out of it. So he mentioned that they recruited 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.080 another gang that knew how to work with trains, knew 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.600 how to stop trains, and what they did was they 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.720 brought this guy on board who had this elderly man 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.640 who was a train driver. His name was Peter, and 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.040 Peter's job once they stopped the train was to get 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.720 it to where the drop point the exchange point was 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.200 in case, you know, because the train stops at the 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.199 red light, right, which they very awkwardly wired the red 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:09.839 light to turn on and they just covered the green 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.000 light with some gloves, but it worked. They stopped the 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:14.640 train and still needed to get it down the track 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.000 to the exchange point. And this old man gets on 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:18.880 board and he's like, I don't know how to undo 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.400 this new handbrake, right, So he was useless. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:26.400 And so the guy Bigs who became this criminal legend 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.720 for evading the law for so many years, apparently his 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.680 only job was to find somebody who could drive the train. 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:35.640 And he failed at that and he screwed it up. 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:37.960 Yeah, so the guy who was supposed to drive the 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.720 train got thrown off the train and they got the 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.240 original train engineer, the one whose job it was to 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.520 actually drive the train under normal circumstances, and made him 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.840 drive another mile and a half to this bridge. 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.480 Yeah, and that was Jack Mills, And this is a 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.000 very important detail. He was, like you said, the conductor 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.960 and two guys jumped on the train at the very 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.960 front there and uh coshed him, which is smacked him 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:04.920 on the head a bunch with this billy club. I 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.200 thought it was a crowbar wells an ironcosh, which is 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.960 English for crowbar, I guess. And this was a big 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.840 point because for a lot of reasons. One in that 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.280 it was why the justice ended up coming down so 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.240 harshly on them, because they were apparently way more violent 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.160 than they needed to be with this guy. Yeah, and 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.400 the public perception of these guys's working class heroes doesn't 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.760 jibe with the violence because they weren't. You know, the 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.960 English still aren't really into violence as a whole. 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:37.720 No, especially if you're the bowler hat GK. 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.840 Yeah, Like you dressed nicely and you conducted your business, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.280 your criminal business like gentlemen, and you didn't need to 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.080 beat this old guy up. He was elderly, nearing retirement, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.560 and his family says the robbers still say today that like, 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.040 he wasn't beaten up nearly as bad as they say, 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.600 and the family's like, no, he never fully recovered, yeah, 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:57.560 and died of cancer. 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.479 But about seven years later I think he died of leukemia. 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.880 Yeah, but they say he had headaches for the rest 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.040 of his life and he was just not the same man. Yeah. 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.120 You can't do that to somebody. You can't do that 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:08.440 to someone. 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:13.520 And and like you said, that changed absolutely everything. Goodie, 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.560 the the guy who's really the brains behind this whole operation, 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.280 he wrote a book a few years back before he died, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.800 and he named He said it was either Buster Edwards 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.040 or a guy named Jame Hussey, who is the one 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.200 who coched the poor conductor. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.640 Yeah, and supposedly Hussy who was brought in as a 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.400 heavy as some muscle. Supposedly at his deathbed he said 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.320 that it was him who coshed the guy. Yeah. And 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.160 but there are other people that say, including Jack Mills's 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.760 son who said, no, my father told me who it 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.080 was and it wasn't him. This guy is just doing 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.120 that that robber thing where you still cover for your people. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.160 So like on his deathbed, he was still trying to 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.200 cover for the real guy. And I don't know if 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.280 we'll ever know for real if it was him or 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:55.920 the other dude. 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.960 Wow, lying on your deathbed, Yeah, that's not okay. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:02.920 No, that never happens. Yeah, that's where you're supposed to 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:03.640 be the most truth. 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.080 Sure, Like yeah, I mean they take deathbak confessions like 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.440 as like completely legitimate in courts. 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.200 Yeah, that's where you're supposed to look at your wife 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.600 and say, I never really loved you. 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:18.840 Wow, that's terrible, Chuck. 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.000 Could you imagine? I think that was in a movie. 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:22.880 Once you thought it was gonna be some tender moment 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.280 and he was like, I never really loved you. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.200 I think I know what you're talking about. The War 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.960 of the Roses, where like they're both laying there dying 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.680 and Michael Douglas goes to like put his arm around. 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.520 I think it's a great movie. No, I don't think 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:40.320 anybody's done that. 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.760 Oh okay. So Roger Cordrey is the guy's name who 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.600 came up with the idea to fix these train signals. 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:48.880 Uh. 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.120 And he was an associate of Buster Edwards. And if 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.200 you had ever seen a movie Buster with Phil. 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:56.680 Collins, Oh, is that who it's about. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.640 That's what it's about. Sort of like working class criminal 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:03.720 like criminals back then were kind of revered in certain 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:04.840 circles in England. It's weird. 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.919 Two hearts beating it. 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.840 Just one was that from that movie. Okay, great song. 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.400 All right, So after this break we are gonna talk 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.960 a little bit more about how it went down and 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.520 what happened right after. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.600 So chuck, Yeah, we've got the Bowler Hat Gang and 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.560 the South Coast Raiders. Yeah, coming together for one huge 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:36.080 heights that's worth about one hundred million dollars in today's money, yeah, 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.679 or or half that. They're hitting the up Special. Just 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:43.560 this crotchety old twelve car train moving along through the 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.119 night from Scotland to London, right, Yeah, And so the 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.200 gang messes with the lights. 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:52.440 Yeah, they put a. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.359 Glove around the green light and managed to turn on 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.240 the red light. So the train comes to the stop, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.080 they all board the train. Yeah, they hit the conductor 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:02.840 over the head, huge mistake. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:03.960 Yeah. 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.160 They bring on the guy who's supposed to drive the train, 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.840 find out he can't drive the train, throw him off, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.560 stand the conductor back up, probably give him a handkerchief 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:14.480 for his head, Yeah, and say we need you to 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:16.960 drive this another mile and a half to the drop point, 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.800 which is called a Britigo bridge. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:22.680 Yeah, it was it like a bridge overpass. 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.720 Uh huh. And the guy does that and they start 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:27.359 offloading the loot. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:29.920 Yeah, they got one hundred and twenty of one hundred 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:35.640