by 4 people |
Did you know there were two Great Train Robberies?
One was a real life robbery in 1963 that took place in the UK and the other was a film released in 1903.
Perhaps the more famous of the two was the 1963 Great Train Robbery in the UK, in which one of the criminals was the infamous Ronnie Biggs who escaped from prison and went on the run living in Brazil until 2001 when he voluntarily returned to Britain in ill health. He was sent back to prison.
Biggs was formally released on the 7th August 2009. Home Secretary Jack Straw cited compassionate grounds.
The 1903 film The Great Train Robbery Apparently the inspiration for this film was the exploits of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid who committed a train robbery on the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming in 1899.
The lure of robbing a train is obviously the large sum of money involved. Here's how The Great Train Robbery in the UK at £2.6 million compared to other Big Ticket Robberies
Great Train Robbery (1963)
image credit The Daily Mail
The Great Train Robbery is the name given to a £2.6 million train robbery committed on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England. The bulk of the stolen money was not recovered. At the time, it was probably the largest robbery by value in British history, until the Baker Street robbery of 1971.
What Happened to The 1963 Train Robbers?
The Brains behind the robbery was Bruce Reynolds nicknamed 'Napoleon'.
image credit Jirir Rezac
He was caught and sentenced to 25 years after fleeing to Mexico and then Canada.
Roger Cordrey and William Boal were the first to be captured.
Ronald 'Buster' Edwards fled to Mexico too, gave himself up, did nine years and committed suicide in 1994 aged 62.
Charlie Wilson 'Treasurer' was shot by a hitman in 1994
Roy James 'Get Away Driver' served 12 years of a 30 year sentence and died aged 62
Tommy Wisbey 'Heavy' served time and was then sentenced again in 1989 for ten years for Cocaine dealing.
Ronnie Biggs and The Sex Pistols
Fame and infamy
Ronnie Biggs famously got together with the Sex Pistols whilst on the run in Brazil. He featured on this album cover much to the dismay of the police hunting him down.
Buster
Phil Collins stars in film about Buster Edwards
Buster: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
1963 Robbery Get Away Car
Lotus Cortina
Image credit European Automotive
This is the model of car used in the robbery. The Lotus Cortina. State of the art at the time, it did 0-60mph in 14 seconds. A modern Toyota IQ urban run around does it in 14.7 seconds!
The actual car used in the robbery was sold in August 2009 for 100,000 pounds sterling. Read the full story here. Great Train Robbery Car Sold
The Nemesis of the Great Train Robbers
Slipper of the Yard
Jack Slipper tenaciously pursued the Great Train Robbers. He followed Ronnie Biggs to Brazil where he attempted to arrest him.
He bumped into Biggs on the beach front in Rio de Janerio with the following words:
"Long time no see, Ronnie."
Problems with extradition meant that Jack left empty handed
The Story of the The Great Train Robbery
The Robbers' Tale
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
Get on the right track with these 1963 Great Train Robbery links
News and views
- On This Day BBC article
- 8th August 1963
- Thames Valley Police Museum
- Police museum
- Planning of The Great Train Robbery
- Who came up with plan to do The Great Train Robbery?
- Famous Crimes
- The Great Train Robbery
These books are a steal!
The Great Train Robbery (Crime Archive)
Amazon say:
The Great Train Robbery was the 20th century's most breath-taking crime. Fifteen small-time crooks absconded with £2.6 million from the Glasgow-London mail train as it passed through Buckinghamshire - then holed up at Letherslade Farm to play Monopoly with real money.
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
Great Train Robbery Files
Amazon Synopsis:
Daring, ingenuity, prison, escapes, on the run, kidnap, drugs, murder, suicide and revenge - these are all facets contained in this visual documentary of great train robberies portrayed by the media from 1963 to the present.
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
The Autobiography of a Thief
Amazon reviewer Paul S. Massey "Paul" (Houston, Texas) - says:
This review is from: Crossing the Line: The Autobiography of a Thief (Paperback)
I had never heard of Bruce Reynolds until I came across this book quite by accident and what a gem it turned out to be. This book was an astonishing read about the life of an (extra) ordinary boy from London who eventually rose to become the instigator and leader of the now famous and legendary great train robbery of 1963.
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
The Second Great Train Robbery (film)
Or should that be the first!
The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American Western film by Edwin S. Porter. Twelve minutes long, it is considered a milestone in film making, expanding on Porter's previous work Life of an American Fireman. The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes. None of the techniques were original to The Great Train Robbery, and it is now considered that it was heavily influenced by Frank Mottershaw's earlier British film A Daring Daylight Burglary.[http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/443089/index.html] The film uses simple editing techniques (each scene is a single shot) and the story is mostly linear (with only a few "meanwhile" moments), but it represents a significant step in movie making, being one of the first "narrative" movies of significant length. It was quite successful in theaters and was imitated many times.
The movie was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter, a former Edison Studios cameraman. Actors in the movie included A. C. Abadie, Broncho Billy Anderson and Justus D. Barnes, although there were no credits. Though a Western, it was filmed in Milltown, New Jersey. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
1903 Great Train Robbery Film on DVD
Great Train Robbery - 100th Anniversay
Amazon Price: $17.99 (as of 12/30/2009)
DVD version of this seminal film
The Greatest Train Robbery
There can only be 1 Great Train Robbery so which one is it?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byThe 1963 Great Train Robbery
reasonablerobinson says:
because of the stories of the villains that took part
Posted August 08, 2009
The 1903 Great Train Robbery
Other Wild West Train Robberies
Great Western Train Robberies
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
Great Train Robberies of the Old West
Amazon Price: $12.95 (as of 12/30/2009)
Train Robbery News Posts
- Passenger shot dead during train robbery in Bihar
- Train robberies have become common in Bihar. Armed robbers looted dozens of passengers on the Janseva express last month. In August, a passenger was shot ...
- Police Search for 'D Train' Robbery, Assault Suspects
- 25 at around 6: 45 pm, the men robbed a 65-year-old man and an 11-year-old boy on a 'D' train at the 205 St. and Perry Ave subway station in the Bronx, ...
- Latex-Masked Losers Rob 53 Million Pounds in Book on UK Heist
- Still, they got away with 53 million pounds ($85 million), surpassing the Great Train Robbery gang of 1963, which made off with 2.6 million pounds (worth ...
- Around Your Town
- Schedule: living history presentations (10 am and 2 pm), hike to Grand Central Mill (9 am), re-enactment of Great Fairbank Train Robbery (noon), ...
Train Robbery Blog Posts
- small dead animals: Y2Kyoto: The Great Train Robbery
- Y2Kyoto: The Great Train Robbery. When we last checked in on our favourite Railroad Climate Engineer, he was narrowing down the list of Climategate suspects to "fossil fuel lobby" and "corporate interests". ...
- THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903)
- ALTERNATE ENDING FOR THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (Bronco Billy, Justus and Frank ride into a clearing and clumsily dismount from their horses. Justus and Frank begin dancing in celebration of their successful gold theft.) Bronco Billy: HEY! ...
- The Great Train Robbery, or how to settle the Ronald Biggs-dilemma ...
- I just need some clarification on the discard-rule whenever there's some nasty train robbing going on. Do you put the 'robbed cards' on the discard pile (which forms a new train card deck in a 4+ game) or do you take them back in your ...
- The Great Train Robbery
- After all, let's remember who paid 100 percent of the construction costs of this wonderful choo-choo train ? the taxpayers. There was no private-public partnership, no charitable contributions, just the good old taxpayer on the hook for ...
Other Train Robberies
Includes links to these other famous train robberies
Great Gold Robbery of 1855, London - Paris (1855)
Bezdany raid, Lithuania (1908)
Kakori train robbery, India (1925)
Train robbery is a type of robbery, in which the goal is to steal money or other valuables being carried aboard trains.
Train Robbers
The People Who Do It
- Rail Road Train Robbers
- With the arrival of the transcontinental raiways in the west came the new profession of the train robbers.
- Ronnie Biggs applies for parole
- Infamous train robber Biggs seeks freedom
The Bezdany Raid - OK so there was a 'third' Great Train Robbery!
Józef Pisudski's raid on Russian Train 1908
Bezdany raid was a train robbery carried out on the night of 26/27 September Note that some sources give April as the date of the raid. The September date seems to be more popular and better referenced (Zamoyski, Souvarine, Malinowski). The April date probably refers to some other train robbery by Bojówki. 1908 in the vicinity of Bezdany near Vilna (now Bezdonys near Vilnius) on a Russian Empire passenger and mail train by a group of Polish revolutionaries, led by future Polish national hero and dictator, Józef Pi?sudski.
Robbers Remarks
-
Reply
- Treasures-By-Brenda Treasures-By-Brenda Sep 19, 2009 @ 6:11 am
- I've seen Butch Cassidy and really enjoyed the movie.
-
Reply
- reasonablerobinson reasonablerobinson Apr 19, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
- Thanks for the comment :) I should have put a health warning with this lens...'don't try any of these things at home' !
-
Reply
- PeacefulWmn9 PeacefulWmn9 Apr 19, 2009 @ 11:58 am
- I love history, and this was very appealing and informative!
by reasonablerobinson
I'm really interested in what makes people tick. Hobbies include the piano, water... (more)
Explore related pages
Model railroads - sweet, cute and tiny!- A model railway scenery with a dead end railroad terminus station and a nice tra...
Model Railroad Track Plans- I like model railroading, and I have built several model railroad layouts so far...
John Lescroart- John Lescroart is an American crime novels author. Now his gripping crime novels...
Top 5 heist movies~ top bankrobber movies~ Heist movies- A heist film is a film that has a complicated plot built around a group of peopl...
Watch CSI Online- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a CBS television series. You can watch full ep...
Police Scanners- Hi. This lens is constantly under construction, but you are free to start...
