A rural English landscape of narrow country lanes, lined with
bulbous hedgerows and devoid of streetlamps, it was still not yet
light enough to see the grazing cattle, isolated farmhouses and
frothy piles of nettles that surrounded Bridego Railway Bridge.
Above the worn Victorian arch, however, a human chain of
men was throwing immense sacks down into waiting Land
Rovers from the train stopped on the line running over the
bridge. Wearing masks and helmets, the men worked quickly,
the only sound coming from inside the train as the carriage was
emptied of its contents.
As the car, now loaded with £2.6m (€3.6m – the equivalent
of over £40m (€49.7m) today – lumbered away from the scene,
the gang knew that their daring, audacious raid would make
them wanted men. But even Bruce Reynolds, the leader of the
messy array of 14 other small-time villains, could scarcely have
guessed that, half a century on, the Great Train Robbery, as it
would come to be known, would be remembered as the most
iconic heist of the 20th century.
Dawn was about to break over the flat,
lush fields of Buckinghamshire when
the sacks of banknotes disappeared.
»
PHOTO
GETTY
MON
£
Y
FOR
NOTHING
Fifty years after the so-called crime of
the century, we retrace the steps of the
Great Train Robbery
WORDS
ROB CROSSAN
C R I M E S T O R Y
L O N D O N
