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For an exam project: I need a bit more info on The Great Train Robbery.

Mgameing123

Mgameing123

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Hi for my English Oral exam I have to do an assignment on The Great Train Robbery and I need help on some information.

What I want to know is what line was the train on? I know it was heading in the Up direction on the WCML but what line was it on? Up main or the Up relief?

I might ask more information on this thread.
 
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Beebman

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This video possibly doesn't answer your specific question but it might be of general interest - it's the latest release from transport history YouTuber Paul Whitewick:


Synopsis:
This week we take a dive into The Great Train Robbery. As we worked our way through this story it became clear that there we so many tails, rumors and theories. We have done our best to take sources from various documentaries that have either used the criminals involved or the police involved from the time.
Click to expand...
 
C

ChiefPlanner

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There is a huge amount of speculation etc written about the GTR.

I would recomend "Great Train Robbery Confidential" 2019 by Graham Satchwell - a retired British Transport Police senior officer which is utterly superb and the railway operations sections are well written and researched. (had some input into the latter !)

There were several groups of "Train Robbers" , as the book explains - well worth £9.99.....
 
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norbitonflyer

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You should be aware that some people, especially railwaymen, do not see anything "Great" about the robbers. Latter-day Robin Hoods they were not.

Jack Mills, the driver, suffered brain damage when the robbers coshed him. Although he did return to work for a while, he never drove a train again, and died seven years after the robbery, at the relatively young age of 64. His compensation award was £250, which even in 1963, was not very much for life-changing injuries. (Romnnie Biggs's wife sold her story for £65,000)
 
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ChiefPlanner

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norbitonflyer said:
You should be aware that some people, especially railwaymen, do not see anything "Great" about the robbers. Latter-day Robin Hoods they were not.

Jack Mills, the driver, suffered brain damage when the robbers coshed him. Although he did return to work for a while, he never drove a train again, and died seven years after the robbery, at the relatively young age of 64. His compensation award was £250, which even in 1963, was not very much for life-changing injuries. (Romnnie Biggs's wife sold her story for £65,000)
Click to expand...

Not to mention the second man on the stopped mail train . who also had issues in life as a result of this robbery.

The hype over this robbery is one thing , but in reality there were many victims........
 
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Gloster

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ChiefPlanner said:
Not to mention the second man on the stopped mail train . who also had issues in life as a result of this robbery.

The hype over this robbery is one thing , but in reality there were many victims........
Click to expand...

Indeed. David Whitby, the secondman, died less than ten years later of a heart attack: he was 34-years old.
 
M

Morayshire

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ChiefPlanner said:
There is a huge amount of speculation etc written about the GTR.

I would recomend "Great Train Robbery Confidential" 2019 by Graham Satchwell - a retired British Transport Police senior officer which is utterly superb and the railway operations sections are well written and researched. (had some input into the latter !)

There were several groups of "Train Robbers" , as the book explains - well worth £9.99.....
Click to expand...
Seconded. Also worthwhile reading his other book "An Inspector Recalls."
 
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yorkie

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norbitonflyer said:
You should be aware that some people, especially railwaymen, do not see anything "Great" about the robbers. Latter-day Robin Hoods they were not.

Jack Mills, the driver, suffered brain damage when the robbers coshed him. Although he did return to work for a while, he never drove a train again, and died seven years after the robbery, at the relatively young age of 64. His compensation award was £250, which even in 1963, was not very much for life-changing injuries. (Romnnie Biggs's wife sold her story for £65,000)
Click to expand...
Great can mean large, not just saying something is excellent:

dictionary.cambridge.org

great

1. large in amount, size, or degree: 2. used in names, especially to mean…
dictionary.cambridge.org dictionary.cambridge.org
large in amount, size, or degree:
an enormous great hole
The issue is of great importance to voters.
The improvement in water standards over the last 50 years has been very great.
A great many people would agree.
Click to expand...

I suspect the use of 'great' to mean something big was greater in the past, than it is today, and conversely perhaps the use of the word for the alternative meaning of excellent has increased over time.

BanburyBlue said:
en.wikipedia.org

Great Train Robbery (1963) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...
Just a gentle reminder to edit your post to include a link and comment of your own; thanks :) (I will delete this reminder when that's done)
 
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Bald Rick

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If you want some local ‘gen’, then a trip to Nanna’s Cakes cafe just along the road from Train Robbers’ Bridge (between the villages of Mentmore and Ledburn) will help. They have some info boards up inside the cafe with a local slant on events. The cake is also quite excellent, but have the tea, not the coffee. (It is open in the middle of the day, weekends only).
 
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StephenHunter

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norbitonflyer said:
You should be aware that some people, especially railwaymen, do not see anything "Great" about the robbers. Latter-day Robin Hoods they were not.

Jack Mills, the driver, suffered brain damage when the robbers coshed him. Although he did return to work for a while, he never drove a train again, and died seven years after the robbery, at the relatively young age of 64. His compensation award was £250, which even in 1963, was not very much for life-changing injuries. (Romnnie Biggs's wife sold her story for £65,000)
Click to expand...
Had Mills died, there is a good chance Biggs and some of the others would have hanged for murder.
 
Mgameing123

Mgameing123

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Bald Rick said:
If you want some local ‘gen’, then a trip to Nanna’s Cakes cafe just along the road from Train Robbers’ Bridge (between the villages of Mentmore and Ledburn) will help. They have some info boards up inside the cafe with a local slant on events. The cake is also quite excellent, but have the tea, not the coffee. (It is open in the middle of the day, weekends only).
Click to expand...
I live in Denmark so I can't do that :I
 
Cowley

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Mgameing123 said:
I live in Denmark so I can't do that :I
Click to expand...

There might be some useful information in these threads:

Great Train Robbery signalling query

A quick signalling query about this famous (or infamous) incident in 1963. As I understand it, the gang stopped the mail train by tampering with a 2-aspect colour-light signal at Sears Crossing. This entailed lighting the red aspect by connecting it to a battery, and obscuring the (correctly...
www.railforums.co.uk

Great Train Robbery Confidential

The book, 'Great Train Robbery Confidential' is now available in High Street bookshops and online. This is the feedback from those who read the draft- ‘Several new, significant and interesting steps towards the truth.’ - Jackie Malton, former Met. DCI and true inspiration for 'Prime...
www.railforums.co.uk

Great Train Robbery 52 years on

Today at 0300 marks the anniversary of this notorious event. I wouldn't have stumbled across it had I not been watching the Ronnie Biggs tapes. It was the sad case of Jack Mills that got me thinking. A trawl of the internet says Hussey confessed to coshing the driver. But Jack Mills' son...
www.railforums.co.uk
 
DerekC

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yorkie said:
Great can mean large, not just saying something is excellent:

dictionary.cambridge.org

great

1. large in amount, size, or degree: 2. used in names, especially to mean…
dictionary.cambridge.org dictionary.cambridge.org


I suspect the use of 'great' to mean something big was greater in the past, than it is today, and conversely perhaps the use of the word for the alternative meaning of excellent has increased over time.
Click to expand...
Yes. Hence why our island is called "Great" Britain. It is supposed to have been to distinguish it from "Little" Britain - i.e. Brittany, where according to some historians many of the Celtic peoples fled during the years of increasing Saxon domination of southern England. (The Danes came a bit later, @Mgameing123!).
 
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Rescars

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DerekC said:
Yes. Hence why our island is called "Great" Britain. It is supposed to have been to distinguish it from "Little" Britain - i.e. Brittany, where according to some historians many of the Celtic peoples fled during the years of increasing Saxon domination of southern England. (The Danes came a bit later, @Mgameing123!).
Click to expand...
"Great" has quite a history in describing the railways themselves, or at least the aspirations of their proprietors, though some turned out greater than others. As examples, Great Western, Great Eastern, Great Northern, Great Central, Great North of Scotland, etc.
 
Sun Chariot

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Bald Rick said:
If you want some local ‘gen’, then a trip to Nanna’s Cakes cafe just along the road from Train Robbers’ Bridge (between the villages of Mentmore and Ledburn) will help. They have some info boards up inside the cafe with a local slant on events. The cake is also quite excellent, but have the tea, not the coffee. (It is open in the middle of the day, weekends only).
Click to expand...
If only it had been open in the 1980s, when my mid-teen self used to cycle through Mentmore Bridge on a regular basis.
My cycle jaunts (usually to delay doing my homework!) also took me out to the (now demolished) Swanbourne station, to watch the Whatley-Wolverton stone workings.
 
Mcr Warrior

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Presumably there must still be a few myths, stereotypes, mistruths and misconceptions regarding the robbery, that the OP would do well to avoid, in their assignment?
 
T

Taunton

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A common misunderstanding is that the line was overhead electrified. The project was under way, but the wiring had not been strung at the time, and the line was still under local signalbox control. By the time photographers went afterwards to take general establishing shots of the scene it looked quite different, with overhead masts, to how it would have done on the day - often with electric locomotives passing as well.

The attitude of the railway "brotherhood" to the crime would make an interesting sidepiece to the assignment. I believe when the Phil Collins film "Buster" came out, which made it look like some episode out of a boys' daredevil magazine, the cinema in Crewe, driver Jack Mills' home town, refused to show it. I understand they had to approach more than one heritage railway to get a trackside filming location. I believe there were ASLEF, the driver's union, press statements at the time the film came out, about the ongoing realities of it.

Good luck with your English Language exam, by the way!
 
g.satchwell

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Mgameing123 said:
Hi for my English Oral exam I have to do an assignment on The Great Train Robbery and I need help on some information.

What I want to know is what line was the train on? I know it was heading in the Up direction on the WCML but what line was it on? Up main or the Up relief?

I might ask more information on this thread.
Click to expand...
You might be interested my new book about the background to the robbery. Its available on Kindle etc. 'The Great Train robbery & The South coast Raiders.'
 
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MP33

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In the film Buster. Not only did they steal the money but from the location used, they also stole three of the tracks as well.

Do not believe what is in the other films There was not a Mr Big who communicated via an interactive TV with a big eye. Three of the gang were never arrested. Again in the films. There was not one who received a tip off that they were about to be arrested and escaped to South America and another who disguised himself as a railman and sneaked off in the confusion. A meeting was not held beforehand at Leyton Orient FC, where everyone was talking out of the corner of their mouths.
 
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billh

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The 1967 film "Robbery" , recently shown on TPTV has better railway scenes than "buster" , it looks to have been shot on BR lines ( 4 track?) with EE type 4 D318 and Royal Mail coaches. Perhaps because the story line is highly fictionalised it got approval and co-operation from BR and unions?
The scenes in the loco cab do appear to be accurate to the GTR story, particularly the violence shown to the enginemen.
 
g.satchwell

g.satchwell

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Several questions are raised about the robbery. I think the enquirer needs to read 2 books. The first is The Great Train Robbery by Nick Russell-Pavier. It is the most comprehensive account. And secondly, 'Great Train Robbery Confidential.' There is no short cut to acquiring knowledge for either a written or oral exam.
 
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