The Great Train Robbery

Ronald Christopher "Buster" Edwards

____, who had developed a taste for quick money by using his employment in a sausage factory to sell meat on the black market, was progressing to robberies with his friend Gordon Goody.

Brian Field

____, a legal assistant, came into contact with them as a result of their legal run-ins.

the Ulsterman

Field introduced them to a stranger he called "____" at the start of 1963.

Patrick McKenna

This crooked Manchester postal worker, believed to be Belfast-born _____, brought intriguing news: large sums of money were being transported on overnight mail trains from Glasgow to London.

Sears Crossing

The gang would stop the train in Buckinghamshire's open countryside at ____, near the village of Ledburn, where a signal could be tampered with.

80 postal workers

The mail train was typically lengthy, with up to ____ stationed in each car who spent the trip categorizing letters and packages.

High-Value Packages (HVPs)

The gang planned to only uncouple the first two coaches after learning that ____ were kept in the second coach from the front.

Bridego Bridge

When they arrived at _____, they could use a human chain to lower sacks of registered mail from a high embankment to a drop-side truck waiting on the road below.

Leatherslade Farm

Field, in the meantime, arranged for the purchase of the deserted ____, which would serve as their hideout following the robbery and was about 50 kilometers from Sears Crossing.

August 7, 2013

On ____, the train departed Glasgow shortly before 7 o'clock with veteran driver Jack Mills at the wheel and David Whitby by his side.

£2.6 million

Instead of the estimated £300,000 that the gang had been expecting due to the public holiday on the previous Monday, during which the banks had been closed, the HVP coach was carrying over _____ in cash.

Stan Agate

The gang quickly realized that the replacement driver, a retired man they called "_____," was unable to operate the cutting-edge Class 40 diesel-electric locomotive.

30-year sentences

The majority of the 11 received _____ in prison, a harsh punishment for a crime in which no one was killed.

August 1964

In ____, gang member Charlie Wilson's friends broke into Birmingham's Winson Green Prison to kidnap him.

Charlie Wilson

In August 1964, gang member ______'s friends broke into Birmingham's Winson Green Prison to kidnap him.

teaboy

Ronnie Biggs protested against being referred to as the gang's "_____," but his involvement in the Great Train Robbery hardly qualifies as climactic.

Ronnie Biggs

He was an unlucky burglar and armed robber when he met Bruce Reynolds in Wandsworth Prison. He was born in 1929 in Stockwell, south London.

His first and only significant heist was to be The Great Train Robbery.

July 8, 1965

On _____, he used a rope ladder to escape Wandsworth Prison. He traveled to Australia and then Brussels before settling in Brazil in 1970, which did not yet have an extradition agreement with the UK.

May 7, 2001

Eventually, The Sun newspaper paid for Biggs to fly back to the UK on a private jet in exchange for having exclusive rights to his story. On _____, Biggs was detained shortly after touching down at RAF Northolt.

South Eastern Railway

On May 15, 1855, a ______ train traveling between London Bridge and Folkestone in the United Kingdom had about *91 kg of gold stolen* from safes on board.

May 15, 1855

On _____, a South Eastern Railway train traveling between London Bridge and Folkestone in the United Kingdom had about *91 kg of gold stolen* from safes on board.

June 12, 1924

On _____, the Newton Gang robs a postal train near Rondout, Illinois, for approximately $3 million, making it the largest train robbery in history at the time.

Newton Gang

On June 12, 1924, the _____ robs a postal train near Rondout, Illinois, for approximately $3 million, making it the largest train robbery in history at the time.

March 31, 1976

On _____, members of the Irish Republican Socialist Party robbed a train traveling from Cork to Dublin, Ireland, near the village of Sallins.

Irish Republican Socialist Party

On March 31, 1976, members of the _____ robbed a train traveling from Cork to Dublin, Ireland, near the village of Sallins.