Great train robbery (BIGGS)

[kyrano]

Ronnie biggs was in the news saying he as wrote a book about the robbery , I think its didgusting after the driver was killed jack mills from crewe.
anyway i wanted to know what was the loco haulint the train , also one of the coaches is on the Nene valley railway.
any gen will be appreciated.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

40126 I think

 

[Darandio]

Ronnie biggs was in the news saying he as wrote a book about the robbery , I think its didgusting after the driver was killed jack mills from crewe.

He wasn't killed "in" the robbery though. No excuses for what happened though, lets just make sure the facts are correct.

 

[AlterEgo]

40126 I think

Yes, scrapped April 1984 I'm afraid.

The loco was numbered D326 at the time of the robbery.

 

[whhistle]

I saw this in the news too: BBC News.

The way I see it, is that it happened a long time ago. Nobody was killed and if you actually read into the presented facts from various members of the gang, violence was not supposed to be used.
The majority of men were caught and in various ways, the majority of them have died now anyway. The BBC news article said it right I think: "They see him as a loveable rogue - and they're three-quarters right."

 

[ivanhoe]

The thing about Biggs was that he is famous , not for the robbery, but the fact that he was on the run. If he had served his time and was a good boy inside, he would have done about 12 years. Nobody would be talking about him and he probably would have been a non entity, just as he was in the gang that did the robbery.

 

[trentside]

The thing about Biggs was that he is famous , not for the robbery, but the fact that he was on the run. If he had served his time and was a good boy inside, he would have done about 12 years. Nobody would be talking about him and he probably would have been a non entity, just as he was in the gang that did the robbery.

I don't know much about the robbery, but recall seeing on QI a few years ago that Biggs was an insignificant member of the gang - his only responsibility was to find someone to drive the locomotive, which he failed to do. How true this is I don't know.

 

[AlterEgo]

I don't know much about the robbery, but recall seeing on QI a few years ago that Biggs was an insignificant member of the gang - his only responsibility was to find someone to drive the locomotive, which he failed to do. How true this is I don't know.

Yes, that's he right. He found a train driver, but not someone who could drive that type of locomotive!

 

[CosherB]

To quote a song of a while back.....

"You get 30 years for robbing a train
10 for murder. Now that's insane"

British justice has always valued property above life.... The sentences were ludicous for the crime.

(I'm not forgetting driver Jack Mills, but he died years later in February 1970 of natural causes - chronic lymphatic leukaemia [cancer], with a further complication of bronchial pneumonia).

 

[bAzTNM]

Off-topic a bit, but see the guy Phil Collins played in "Buster"? He hung himself in 1994. Just that I found that a bit shocking.

 

[kyrano]

Off-topic a bit, but see the guy Phil Collins played in "Buster"? He hung himself in 1994. Just that I found that a bit shocking.

what as that got to do with this topic?

 

[deltic1989]

Off-topic a bit, but see the guy Phil Collins played in "Buster"? He hung himself in 1994. Just that I found that a bit shocking.

what as that got to do with this topic?

well the topic is regarding the great train robbery and Buster was a film starring Phil Collins about one of the members of the gang that conducted the robbery. So i would argue that it has a lot to do with the topic. As for Biggs the past is the past and he wants to tell his story which everyone has the right to do. He even extended an apology to the drivers family which i think was a very brave thing to do, alas the apology was dismissed.