The Great Train Robbery

One of the most famous robberies in British history was at 3 am on the morning of 8th August 1963. A gang of 15 men stopped a Travelling Post Office Train which was traveling to London from Glasgow in Scotland. They must have planned this robbery in previous weeks because they stopped the train by changing the signal to read, so they must have known when and where the train would be passing. They stole letters containing £2.6 million in cash (this would be £46 million today). The robbers may have stolen more but maybe the time was hampered. When they finished stealing, they drove away to a farmhouse near the railway line where they shared out the money between them.

They could have escaped but unfortunately for them, a neighbor told the police about the men hiding in the farmhouse. When the police went there, they found post office bags and fingerprints, and all the robbers except four were caught and sent to prison. A hypothesis for this robbery is that the four men who were not caught may have escaped first with the money because most of the money was never found.

One of the most curious things that happened with this robbery was that the most famous of the robbers, Ronnie Biggs, was sent to prison for 30 years but in June 1965, after only 15 months in prison, he escaped in a furniture van and ran away to Brazil, maybe the robbers who escaped could have helped him to run away. He lived there until May 2001, when he decided to return to the UK and was sent back to prison.