SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: How The Great Train Robbery Worked

In 1963, 15 men got together in England to pull off one of the most daring heists in history. The Great Train Robbery was the crime of the century, capturing the public's attention and leaving them torn on who to root for - the cops or the robbers. Learn all about England's greatest heist in today's episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:41Josh Clark?

  Thanks for making it through our true crime playlist. We're rounding this one out with a good old-fashioned train robbery for which we head across the pond to visit our friends in the UK. Back in 1963, one of the all-time great holdups was carried out by a huge gang of men who relieved a British mail train of a massive amount of money, and they did it without guns. Most of the robbers were eventually caught, but most of the money has never been found. All aboard for the last episode in our playlist on the Great Train Robbery.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.

• 2:25Speaker 04

  Choo Choo and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W., Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry, and you put all of us together with a couple of microphones, a crummy Ikea lamp, and you, well-

• 2:40Speaker 02

  And a head full of nose juice.

• 2:41Speaker 04

  You get stuff you should know.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  That's right. Stuff you should know's juice.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  Oh, great.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Uh, how's it going, buddy, besides the obvious, under-the-weather-ness of you?

• 2:52Speaker 04

  I predict this is the last one.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Great.

• 2:54Speaker 04

  I'm gonna be back to good as new by the next time we record.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're going to Vancouver and you'll get some of that good Canadian, uh-

• 3:02Speaker 04

  Air.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Air in your body and that-

• 3:03Speaker 04

  Pine air.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  It's healing-

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  -properties.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  I'll get pine and flannel and-

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  -ocean like in my, in my face.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  And moose-

• 3:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Uh, moose hair.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  That's good.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  All that stuff. If you wa- wad it all into a ball and sniff it-

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  It'll, it takes care of everything.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  That's right. What in the world are we talking about?

• 3:27Speaker 04

  I don't know. Uh, we're talking about trains.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  We're talking about a specific train, Chuck. We're talking about a specific train at a specific moment and place and time-

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  That all came together to become known as the Great Train Robbery.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  Did you know, did, did you commission this article?

• 3:48Speaker 02

  I did not.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Did you know about it already, Sam, or?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, a little bit, but, um, not as, like, obviously as much after I researched and I watched a couple of documentaries and, uh, was looking for a great, awesome movie, but I don't think there really is a great, awesome movie about this yet.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  Which is surprising.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  I think they did, like, BBC did one and I think Sean Connery did one that was loosely, I think other things were loosely based, but-

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Like the Taking of Pelham 123?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. That's a good movie.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Did you, uh-

• 4:18Speaker 02

  The original, of course.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. Did you watch The Tale of Two Thieves? Is that one of the documentaries you watched?

• 4:24Speaker 02

  No, I, I don't think that's out to the public yet unless I just haven't seen it.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  I think it's new this year.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, it seems like it's 2014.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  I wanna see it.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  But there are no shortage of, uh, YouTube BBC docs, cause they love it. And I learned a lot of new words watching them.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, um, what?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Oh, like, um, instead of crooked, someone is bent.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Like a bent solicitor, I figured out was a crooked solicitor and a cosh is like a, like a billy club.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  And you can cosh somebody.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Like the train conductor was coshed.

• 4:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, there were just a bunch of cool terms that I had to kind of figure out what they meant in American.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  Gotcha.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  In my English. Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 04

  So I had heard the words great train and robbery together, but I didn't know anything about it.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  I think there was another one, an older great train robbery from the 1800s.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  There's one in 1855.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  Where a train traveling from London to Paris, or vice versa, had a bunch of gold bullion on it. And it got hit. That was legendary. But apparently this was the biggest train heist since then.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  More than a hundred years later.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was a big deal.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  And it was sort of Jesse James style. That's why it became one of the crimes of the century in England for sure. I mean, it was huge in the press and these guys that knocked off this train became these kind of weird working class heroes.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  Well, one of them became the symbol for the anti-establishment.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Which one?

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Oh, what was his name?

• 6:03Speaker 04

  The one who made off for years and years.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  Biggs.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was on the lam for like 30 years. So he was super famous.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they knew where he was and they couldn't get to him, which we'll talk about. But he, you know, became like the, this folk hero of the anti-establishment. He sang vocals on lots of like punk records.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw in both documentaries, they had a bunch of interviews, like on the street interviews from the time. Like with regular upstanding citizens, like whose side are you on? And a lot of them were like, well, I feel ashamed to admit this, but I kind of think these guys really took it to the cops on this one.

• 6:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  And they thought they were ingenious and. Even though the plan, as we'll get to, really was pretty uncomplicated.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  It wasn't nearly as clever as it was made out to be.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Right. Well, let's talk about the plan. So, there was this idea. Who had the idea, the original idea?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Uh, I believe his last name was Fields. He was the guy who originally had the idea and approached several people, criminals, for partnership. And they all turned him down, except for this ace safe cracker by the name of Goody.

• 7:14Speaker 04

  Okay, so Goody had a friend who was, uh, his name was Bruce Reynolds, and I guess he, um, he originally funded the whole thing?

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they were in a gang, uh, called the Bowler Hat Gang in, uh, London, I know, right?

• 7:28Speaker 04

  I don't think we've said this. We've made reference to like, the Wild West and train robbers and everything. This is the 1960s.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  Like, the early 1960s that this is going on.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the Bowler Hat Gang was, um, they dressed in bowler hats and suits and they had done some crimes and they were, uh, mainly career criminals and they actually even, uh, they had the press's attention and they actually tried to rob a train at first, but it didn't work so well and they got away. And, uh, but that, they had sort of a, not a trial run, but they legitimately tried to knock off another train.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  So, is that when they realized that they needed to expand their rank and file?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, they realized that we don't know trains and we don't know how to stop them, so we need to get some train guys.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  Right, so the Bowler Coast Gang, uh, who is, I guess, led by Bruce Reynolds, right?

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, Bowler Hat.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  The Bowler Hat.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Gang. They got with the South Coast Gang, I think.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, the South Coast Raiders.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  So, they, and this is, I mean, those are some great gang names, by the way.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Totally great.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  But the, uh, the Bowler Hat Gang and the South Coast Raiders, who were led by a dude named Buster Edwards, right?

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, uh, Tom Wisby, he was one of the main guy, or, uh, Wisny, sorry.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  So, those guys all got together and they said, "We've got this great idea. We need your people to get, to come help us. We're gonna rob a train." And they're, not just any train. There was one specific train that this gang targeted, and for good reason. It was called the Up- Special. And the up special had been running since the 1830s between Glasgow, Scotland and London.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Right? Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  And it had run every night and it was basically like a mail sorting facility on wheels.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Like it was pretty clever. They, they thought, well, we'll take all the mail from Glasgow that's going to London. And we'll sort it along the way. So there was 12 cars in the Glasgow special or the up special.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  And, and a diesel engine. So it was a pretty simple train.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it had run for years and years.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Right.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Without incident.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  For, for like 150, 100, almost 150 years.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it wasn't loaded with guards and cops. I mean, it was a bunch of postmen, basically.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Which is a really, it's really weird then that the, the banks would trust their money that were moving from Glasgow to London.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 04

  To this postal train.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  That had like no security, no armed guards, no, no alarms until the early 60s. Um, on the train cars themselves. But yet every night the banks would empty their, um, their accounts into this train and say, good luck getting to London.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Like here's a bunch of huge sacks of money.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  We're going to put it on the train and you're going to sort it along the way.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Uh, they had an inside man who, and this is one of those weird stuff you should know things. You know how there's all these weird correlations in the news?

• 10:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  I picked out this article two days ago. And two days ago, it was announced who the identity of the inside man was.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. The last great mystery of this thing from the 60s.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  Was just unraveled like two days ago.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  And I didn't even know it at the time. I found out afterward, uh, but the, the code name was Ulster Man. And it was always believed to be someone on the inside of the, uh, Of the, the train and post industry. To give him information, like, you know, the train is super loaded on this particular night because of a bank holiday.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  And he was named by Gordon Goody as Patrick McKenna.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, in that documentary, A Tale of Two Thieves, they hand a picture of Patrick McKenna to Goody and say, is that Ulsterman? And apparently, he like, kinda like, gets visibly uncomfortable.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 11:17Speaker 04

  Because he's kept this guy's identity secret. He was the last person alive.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  For fifty years.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  Who, to, to know who this person was. There were two other people who knew. They both died before Goody. Uh, Patrick McKenna died, uh, years back. And there was just this one man who swore he would take the secret to his grave and he, uh, he named them. He fingered him.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  These guys were really good at keeping secrets over the years.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  They wore bowler hats, for goodness sake.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Uh, so McKenna's family was super surprised to hear all this. Police never suspected him and, um, they basically think that this guy felt bad afterward and never even spent the money and gave it to the Catholic Church, like, slowly over the years.

• 11:57Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  His cut, is what the family is saying. But, um.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  It sounds like an Ulsterman kinda thing to do.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, Ulstie.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  He's a good guy.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Well, before he had his change of heart, uh, he was the inside man that helped the gang figure this out.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, he actually recommended they change the date to get a bigger, uh, take.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  And it was, and it worked.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Can you, can you explain this to me? So, a bank holiday. And it's the same thing here in the US. It's like, it, like, a day the banks are closed.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  They have official bank holidays. There is a banking act in the UK from the nineteenth century that designated certain days as bank holidays.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  What I don't understand is, why is there so much more money the day after a bank holiday? It's like, everybody waited to do their banking business that they would have done on Monday, on Tuesday? Like, there's so many more people, or so many more transactions that didn't get to be done on that Monday that were carried out on the Tuesday? That, that, that's why there's so much more money?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  I don't know. Maybe it's that the, uh, because of the holiday, they didn't, uh, do their deposits and, and, like, make the money leave the bank like they normally would, so it was compounded.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  I guess.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  So there was like, a double the amount of money as usual, because they didn't do their drop on the holiday or something.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, but they didn't conduct any business on the holiday, so there wouldn't have been more money to accumulate than usual. You know what I'm saying?

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Well, if it came after a weekend, though, maybe it was like all of that weekend's deposits

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  had gathered up.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  I don't know. That's a good question.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Okay, the point is, is that-

• 13:34Speaker 02

  There's a lot more money than usual.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  A lot more. Usually, this, um, this train car, the UP special, carried about 300,000 pounds, um, between Glasgow and London each, each night.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  On this particular night, the night of August 8th, 1963, uh, which was Thursday, early wee hours of a Thursday.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  Um, it was carrying something like, uh, 2.6 million pounds, which today in dollars would be worth about 50 million.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  I think it's, I looked that up and it was like double that.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  100 million?

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, because you're going from 1963 to 2013 and from pounds to dollars.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  I might be off, but I, I got 69 million pounds today, or 111 million dollars US.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Let's go with that. That's way better.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Either way, 2.6 million pounds was a ton of money for a heist back then.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  It was like, really, really a lot of dough.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Even splitting it among 15 guys.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they didn't even necessarily split it evenly. There were, uh, uh, the, the core gang who were carrying this thing out and they all got even split, but there are also accomplices. In addition to Ulstermen, there was Mr. One, Mr. Two, and Mr. Three.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, and those are, they're named so because they, uh, were never brought to justice. There were three that just got away with it. Even though they knew who they were, supposedly, they didn't have evidence to go pick them up. So like the identities of the three guys that got away, they, they think they knew who they were the whole time.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  Really? Can, I mean, one of them's named John Weider. He got away?

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Nah, I'm not sure. Was he one of the one, two, or three?

• 15:10Speaker 04

  He was, yeah, he was the one who got the safe house for the gang.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, he worked with Fields to get the safe house. Uh, well, let's back up here.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  We're so excited. We're getting ahead of ourselves. So he mentioned that they recruited another gang that knew how to work with trains, knew how to stop trains. And, um, what they did was they brought this guy on board who had a, this elderly man who was a train driver. His name was Peter. And Peter's job, once they stopped the train, was to get it to where the, the drop point, the exchange point was, in case, you know, because the train stops at the red light.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Which they very awkwardly wired the red light to turn on, and they just covered the green light with some gloves.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  But it worked. They stopped the train and still needed to get it down the track to the exchange point. And this old man gets on board and he's like, "I don't know how to undo this new handbrake."

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  So he was useless.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  And so the guy, Biggs, who became this criminal legend for evading the law for so many years. Apparently, his only job was to find somebody who could drive the train.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  And he failed it.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  And he screwed it up.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  So the guy who was supposed to drive the train got thrown off the train. And they got the original train engineer, the one whose job it was to actually drive the train under normal circumstances, and made him drive another mile and a half to this bridge.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that was Jack Mills. And, uh, this is a very important detail. He was, like you said, the conductor and two guys jumped on the train at the very front there and, uh, coshed him, which is, smacked him on the head a bunch with this billy club.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  I thought it was a crowbar.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Uh, well, it was an iron cosh, which is English for crowbar, I guess. And, um, this was a big point because, um, for a lot of reasons. One, in that it was why the, the justice ended up coming down so harshly on them because they were apparently way more violent than they needed to be with this guy.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  And the public perception of these guys as working class heroes doesn't jibe with the violence, because they weren't, you know, the English still aren't really into violence as a whole.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  No, especially if you're the bowler hat gang.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, like you dressed nicely and you conducted your business, your criminal business like gentlemen.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  And you didn't need to beat this old guy up. He was elderly, nearing retirement. And his family says, the robbers still say today that like, he wasn't beaten up nearly as bad as they say. And the family's like, no, he never fully recovered.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  And died of cancer, but um.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  About seven years later, I think he died of leukemia.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they say he had headaches for the rest of his life and he was just not the same man.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. You can't do that to somebody.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  You can't do that to someone.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  And, and like you said, that changed absolutely everything. Goody, the, the guy who's really the brains behind this whole operation, he, he wrote a book a few years back before he died. And he named, he said it was either Buster Edwards or a guy named James Hussey, who was the one who coshed the poor conductor.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and supposedly Hussey, who was brought in as a heavy, as some muscle, supposedly at his deathbed, he said that it was him.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Who coshed the guy.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  And, but there are other people that say, including Jack Mills's son, who said, no, my father told me who it was and it wasn't him. This guy is just doing that, that robber thing where you still cover for your people. So like on his deathbed, he was still trying to cover for the real guy. And I don't know if we'll ever know for real, if it was him or the other dude.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  Wow, lying on your deathbed.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  That's not okay.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  No, that never happens. Yeah, that's where you're supposed to be the most truthful, right?

• 18:43Speaker 04

  Sure, like, yeah, I mean, they take deathbed confessions like, as, like, completely legitimate in courts.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's where you're supposed to look at your wife and say, I never really loved you.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Wow, that's terrible, Chuck.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Could you imagine? I think that was in a movie once. You thought it was going to be some tender moment and he was like, I never really loved you.

• 19:04Speaker 04

  I think I know what you're talking about. The War of the Roses, where like they're both laying there dying and Michael Douglas goes to like, put his arm around Kathleen Turner.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  It's one of my favorite movies.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  It's a great movie.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Um.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  No, I, I don't think anybody's done that.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Okay. So Roger Cordery is the guy's name who came up with the idea to fix these train signals. And he was an associate of Buster Edwards. And if you had ever seen the movie Buster with Phil Collins?

• 19:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, is that who it's about?

• 19:36Speaker 02

  That's who it's about.

• 19:37Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Sort of like a working class criminal. Like criminals back then were kind of revered in certain circles in England. It's weird.

• 19:45Josh Clark?

  Two hearts beating in just one mind.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Was that from that movie?

• 19:50Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:51Josh Clark?

  Great song.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  All right. So after this break, we are gonna talk a little bit more about how it went down and what happened right after.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. If you've been thinking about securing your home, there's no better time to protect it with SimpliSafe. Right now, you can save 70% on a new system, their biggest savings of the year. You've heard us talk about SimpliSafe before, and you know it's designed to keep threats away from the door and your loved ones safe in the first place. If you thought about SimpliSafe at all, now is the time to finally secure your home.

• 20:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts. Their agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  That's right. And SimpliSafe has an offer for our listeners now with their biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/stuff. That's simplisafe.com/stuff. And when you order, write in the code STUFF at checkout. It tells them we sent you, and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 21:08Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on. Whether you're heading to work, or going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you wanna shop for yourself and everyone on your list.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 22:17Speaker 04

  So Chuck.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  We've got the Bowler Hat Gang and the South Coast Raiders.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Coming together for one huge heist that's worth about $100 million in today's money.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, or, or half that.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  They're hitting the up special, just this crotchety old 12-car train, moving along through the night from Scotland to London, right?

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  And so the, the gang messes with the lights.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  They put a glove around the green light and managed to turn on the red light, so the train comes to the stop. They all board the train.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  They hit the conductor over the head. Huge mistake.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Uh, they bring on the guy who's supposed to drive the train, find out he can't drive the train, throw him off, stand the conductor back up, probably give him a handkerchief for his head.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  And say, "We need you to drive this another mile and a half to the drop point," which is called the Britigo Bridge.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, was it like a bridge overpass?

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Uh huh. And, uh, the guy does that, and they start offloading the loot.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, they got 120 of the 128 sacks of cash money onto, um, they had this big lorry and a couple of Land Rovers.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, could, could it be, could this be any more stylish?

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was pretty stylish.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  They had Land Rovers as getaway cars.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's pretty cool. Um, you see why people bought into all this stuff and thought it was cool, because I think it's cool right now.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Um, and so what they did, they had pre-arranged a hideout, and this was Fields's job as well, was he bought this farm and farmhouse.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Leather sleighed farm, right?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, to, and it was sort of ingenious, but ended up screwing them in the end. Because the idea was, within thirty minutes of this robbery, they have effectively disappeared off the face of the earth.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Well, they stopped the train and got it to the bridge and offloaded, uh, more than a ton of money.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, two tons, I think.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  Two and a half tons of money in fifteen minutes.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they were back in their hideout in another fifteen. So by the time this thing was reported, they were gone in, in this farmhouse, like with the windows shut and the shades drawn.

• 24:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  But it also kind of screwed them because before they left the train, they said, alright, no one moves for thirty minutes. And so the cops hear this and they went, oh, well, that, they're probably within a thirty mile radius then. And so they put this out on the news. We know that they're within a thirty mile radius and we're gonna start canvassing the area. They get word of this, they're within twenty-eight miles. And they go, well crap, they're gonna find us. And they also said it was sort of a city boys move to think you can hide out in the country like that.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  And this one guy in the documentary was like, nah, you, you, out in the country, you get noticed.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  If you're fifteen guys in a farmhouse.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  That was their undoing. A neighbor said, there's a lot more people at this old, rambling old farm. And they're all wearing bowler hats for some reason, or at least half of them are.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  Uh, uh, there's something fishy going on. So when the, uh, when the word got out that this train had been hit, this guy came forward and said, you guys should go check this farm out.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Well, the guys weren't only at this farm for the half hour after, uh, the heist. They'd been there for like eight days, waiting for the day to come, getting ready. Um, eating things that required ketchup, playing Monopoly.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Played a lot of Monopoly with their real money.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Yes, they did.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  They thought that was just a fun thing to do, you know?

• 25:48Speaker 04

  Hilarious.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Um, and they did go to the trouble of like wiping down a lot of the stuff, but they left a lot of stuff behind, including the Monopoly game, including the ketchup bottle, and a lot of other stuff that had prints on it.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Well, yes, because Fields was supposed to get a guy to go torch the place.

• 26:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, why wouldn't you just burn the place down?

• 26:07Speaker 02

  That was the plan, and apparently the guy never did it. And they ended up getting out of there a few days early. They left five days into it because they obviously heard the news that they were canvassing the area.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  So they left quicker than they wanted to. And like you said, left a lot of stuff behind because they thought it was going to be torched.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Their plan was to lay low there for a few days?

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, to keep laying low.

• 26:30Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  But when they found out, they were basically making their way to them little by little.

• 26:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  They got the heck out of Dodge quicker.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  Well, that probably kept them from getting caught sooner.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  But in, so the public is being treated to this incredibly daring train heist. These people got away without a trace for at least the first week. Finally, within a week, this Leather Slade Farms has been identified as the place where these guys were hiding out.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, they found the trucks.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  And they got at least one person within eight days of the heist.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  And all of a sudden, people start falling. There's 15 people.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  And on the case is called the Flying Squad. Who are like the best of the best that Scotland Yard has to offer to combat these, some of the best of the best criminals that Great Britain has had to offer at the time.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, Chief Superintendent Detective Tommy Butler was the head of the Flying Squad. And like you said, this was so sensational because it was the top robbers and the top cop. It was, I guess, sort of like the Elliot Ness of the day.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Going after Al Capone. It was just a huge story.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  And like you said, they started getting nicked one by one. And it came out later that there was an informant by the name of Mickey Keough. Supposedly Scotland Yard said, this guy Mickey Keough was telling us all about it because it was well-known within the criminal underground, like what was going on. And started naming names, although the robbers to this day still say, nah, it wasn't Mickey Keough. We knew that guy. He didn't even know us that well. He wasn't giving up names.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  But I don't know, Scotland Yard says he was, so I don't see why they'd make that up.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  I could see them making it up to protect somebody else. Especially if they didn't like Mickey Keough and the way he looked.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  That's true, but they, you're right. They started to go down one by one. Uh, there was a pretty short list of people who they thought it was. It wasn't like some great mystery.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Plus, once they started peeling away one and catching one here or there, others started falling. Others, did, did, did anyone who was caught name names? Did you get that impression?

• 28:42Speaker 02

  No, they were, um, most of them were pretty tight lipped. Uh, in fact, one guy, Charlie Wilson, he was the treasurer of the gang. He, uh, they called him the silent man because he literally said nothing. He just didn't speak at all during the trial.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Right. He went on to become a US congressman who waged a proxy war against Russia and Afghanistan in the seventies.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I think that's a different Charlie Wilson.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Different Charlie, okay.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Tom Hanks.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. Um, so, consider this from the public's point of view. There's this daring robbery, right? Words getting out. Within a week, you got your first guy caught, but there's still tons more people on lam, which gave the press tons of fodder. They had so much to write about. Um, there was a, a, a capture of one of the guys that involved rooftops. Like, the guy was running and jumping from roof to roof with the police in chase, you know? And, and finally, by August, all these guys are rounded up. Twelve of the fifteen, I think, were rounded up.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Uh, and they started to stand trial, um, in January. They were caught. They're being quiet. The public is just totally in awe. And finally, this trial starts. And right out of the gate, the judge found out that, uh, Biggs had a criminal past, so he shouldn't be tried with the rest of them because it could taint the jury, uh, against all these other guys unfairly. So Biggs got spun off to his own trial. And these guys, uh, stood trial, the other four, or the other eleven, no, ten of them stood trial. One of them managed to have a lawyer. He was there because his prints were on the, no, the Monopoly game.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, there were prints on catch-up and Monopoly and pots and pans. And some of the guys wore gloves the entire time and they were the smart ones, yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Uh, but Biggs was the one, remember Biggs' one job was to bring the train engineer and uh, he screwed that up.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  His prints were on the ketchup bottle, so he screwed that up too. But um, there was another guy whose prints were on the Monopoly game and his lawyers managed to show that that those could have gotten there long before the crime.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 04

  And that it didn't necessarily mean he had anything to do with it. He got set, uh, he was acquitted during this trial.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 04

  He was the only lucky one. Everybody else had the book thrown at them.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, I mean, there was, a lot of them were saying that they cooked up a bunch of evidence because they knew it was them, but they just didn't have the evidence. So um, the big lorry truck they had painted hastily painted yellow and uh, the goody, uh, one of the main, you know, two guys was supposedly some of his evidence was that they found yellow paint on a shoe. And he was like, I didn't paint in those shoes. And it was funny because years later, he's like, "Oh, I did it. And yeah, I painted that truck yellow, but I wasn't wearing those shoes. They planted that evidence on me."

• 31:34Speaker 04

  Is that right?

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and apparently there was uh, false confessions. There was another great uh, British word for that. Uh, I can't remember what they called it, but-

• 31:42Speaker 04

  Chabberdaba?

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Chabberdabing. They um, false confessions were big at the time in England and uh, there was a lot of reports from these robbers that they were using false confessions and planning evidence. And again, even though they did it, they were like, "Yeah, but if you don't have evidence, you can't convict us."

• 32:00Speaker 04

  Alright.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  So I don't think we'll ever know if they cooked up some of this evidence or not.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Well, there was one guy named uh, Bowle, William Bowle.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Oh, poor guy.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  He apparently had nothing to do with it.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  He received money in payment from a debt from, I think that goody owed him.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  No, it was, it was Biggs.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Oh, Biggs. Biggs again!

• 32:20Speaker 02

  He was a friend of Biggs and when he got out, helped him kind of lay low, but he had nothing to do with the robbery. And um-

• 32:28Speaker 04

  He got 14 years.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  No, I'm sorry, it was Corddry. It wasn't Biggs.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Okay, Corddry.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Um, I know, I feel bad for Biggs. We're just dragging his name through the mud.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  But it was Rob Cordry.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  It wasn't Rob Corddry, but um.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  It was his dad.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  It was his great grandfather Corddry and he was Bull's friend. He helped him lay low and he went in. Uh, Corddry was actually the first one to get, to get pinched because he and Bull helped him rent a garage. And they paid in like the same bank note bills for like three months in advance in cash. And the lady said, eh, this is a little suspicious. Turned him in. Bull got wrapped up and because all these guys were saying we're innocent. They couldn't come out and say, well, he really is innocent.

• 33:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  So they kinda had to take this guilt with them to prison.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  So Bull got 14 years.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  For doing nothing really.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. And for just basically knowing the wrong guys and hanging out with the wrong guys. He died in prison.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  I'm not laughing because it's just tragic.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  It is tragic. So his family's like trying to mount a campaign now, um, to get a posthumous pardon at least.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  But he, uh, he and the guy who got hit over the head, the conductor are really the two big victims in all of this.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, uh, one of them, there was only one guy that, um, turned in his cut of the money and actually pleaded guilty. Uh, out of the rest.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  That was Corddry, I think.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was Corddry.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  So even, he, he says, yes, I did it. Here's my 80 grand. The guy who he associated with still got 14 years.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  And died in jail.

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Yep. That's so sad. Um, so you'll notice that we're talking about 12 of the 15 bigs, by the way, after he stood trial separately was also found guilty and got things like, uh, these guys were getting like 20 years, 30 year sentences, enormous sentences for this, this train robbery.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Generally 30, which was double the harshest penalties for robbery that they've ever seen.

• 34:33Speaker 04

  Right. Which is really strange because the, the judge in the case, um.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  He had actually reduced another robber in a completely separate robbery, where a man had been shot and killed during the commission of the robbery.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 34:51Speaker 04

  Someone who was involved in that robbery had his sentence reduced from 15 years to 10 years.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Crazy.

• 34:56Speaker 04

  Because that judge thought it was excessive. That same judge was handing out 30-year sentences to these guys where no one got killed.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was Justice Edmund Davies. I think because it was such a high-profile case, he felt he could make his name.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  Had to be.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  You know?

• 35:10Speaker 04

  So, he was making his name, though, against public sentiment because a lot of people were very much saw these guys as folk heroes. None more, though, than Biggs. And the reason why Biggs was a folk hero was because he evaded capture so long. And we'll talk about that right after this.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. If you've been thinking about securing your home, there's no better time to protect it with SimpliSafe. Right now, you can save 70% on a new system, their biggest savings of the year. You've heard us talk about SimpliSafe before, and you know it's designed to keep threats away from the door and your loved ones safe in the first place. If you thought about SimpliSafe at all, now is the time to finally secure your home.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts. Their agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  That's right, and SimpliSafe has an offer for our listeners now with their biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/stuff. That's simplisafe.com/stuff. And when you order, write in the code STUFF at checkout. It tells them we sent you, and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 36:39Josh Clark?

  Hey everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on. Whether you're heading to work, or going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 37:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. The holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family? Like, really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.

• 38:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what we thought. So maybe it's time for a little refresh. Well, we have a tip. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home, so you can host and celebrate without the stress.

• 38:13Speaker 02

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• 38:23Josh Clark?

  And it's all built for real life. Every item is hand-vetted by specialists with a 10-point quality inspection. And on top of that, with over 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can have total confidence in all the picks you make.

• 38:35Speaker 02

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• 38:54Speaker 02

  All right, so some really interesting things happened after they were sentenced. Charlie Wilson escaped prison.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Which was pretty cool. A couple of them escaped prison. And the way that it was very cute how you could escape prison back then, like, let's put a ladder by the fence and climb up and jump over into a truck and speed away.

• 39:14Speaker 04

  It turns out that Benny Hill's show was basically a docu-drama at the time.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Another one escaped when he, I think he had some guys infiltrate the prison and help them escape.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, in a furniture truck.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  That was Biggs, I think.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a lot easier to escape prison back then. And some of these were maximum security for what it's worth, you know?

• 39:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, yeah, one of them was Britain's version of Alcatraz. They say Wandsworth Prison. And that Biggs escaped from there. When he escaped and went on the lam, he went to Australia and then eventually moved on to Brazil. But first, he stopped off at one of the worst human beings to ever walk the planet's office, the very same cosmetic surgeon.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 40:01Speaker 04

  Who redid the faces of Nazis fleeing Europe at the end of World War II.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Really?

• 40:05Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  That's who his plastic surgeon was?

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, he, so Biggs got his face redone a little bit, went to Australia, made it to Brazil. And he had a family in Australia, which he left behind there, and then went on to Brazil, got a girlfriend. And she was pregnant with their child when the authorities, the British authorities, found him in Brazil. And he said, oh, turns out, under Brazilian law, you can't extradite the parent of a Brazilian citizen.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Oh, crazy.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  So for many, many years, Ronald Biggs lived openly as this felon escapee in Brazil. And there are things that he couldn't do in Brazil. Apparently, he couldn't go to bars. He couldn't be out after 10:00 PM. He couldn't associate with, you know, anybody with a criminal record or anything like that. But he wasn't imprisoned by the Brazilian authorities, and he couldn't be extradited to Great Britain, which drove Great Britain crazy.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 41:08Speaker 04

  And there was this one very famous detective who was on this case, who made his own name. His name was Jack Slipper.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I get the feeling that he and, uh, and Biggs, it was sort of like the Les Misérables, like, uh, Jean Valjean.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  You know, they had this lifelong pursuit.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  Smoking the Bandit.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sure.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's a very old story.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Uh, and Biggs and Jack Slipper were, were playing it out in real life. So much so that Jack Slipper in 1974 showed up on Biggs's doorstep. I guess just to rattle him, just to say, "I, I know where you are and I can get to you." And Biggs said, "Yeah, but you really can't do anything to me."

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, uh, some of the other guys evaded police for a little while, for a number of years, but I think by 1969, they were all caught, except for the three that they couldn't finger with, uh, good evidence.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  But, um, even the, the main mastermind was able to evade the police for four or five years. I think he went down to Mexico.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Buster. He turned himself in after living on the lam for three years.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Bruce Reynolds, uh, I think he was on the lam for a while, too.

• 42:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, he got caught in Canada, I think. Um, one of the guys, uh, well, I guess it was Bruce Reynolds, when he changed his name when he went on the lam, he changed his family's last name to Firth.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 42:30Speaker 04

  And he had a wife and son.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Colin?

• 42:32Speaker 04

  He changed his son Nick's name to Colin Firth.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Shut up.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  Is that the guy? No, no.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  Totally coincidental.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Okay, I thought you were gonna say.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  Wouldn't that be amazing if Colin Firth was the son of Bruce Reynolds and it was all an alias that he turned into a stage name?

• 42:48Speaker 02

  That would be awesome, actually. Um, so one of the, the fun things that the, the Prime Minister tried to do, because he was so upset about this, was, uh, he tried to, at one point, or he didn't try to, he had the idea to reissue every banknote in England so their money would no longer be good.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  So from what I understand.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  And they were like, "Yeah, you can't do that."

• 43:10Speaker 04

  I, from what I understand, uh, most of the money was never recovered.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, 400 grand out of the 2.6 million was recovered.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  Right, so there, there was a lot of that out there still.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  But apparently, England went to a different type of decimal currency by like 1970, I think, and that means that that money that was out there automatically became worthless.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Well, apparently, they laundered it pretty quickly afterward, so I don't know how much that affected them.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Like through bookies and stuff like that. They made it new money. However, all of the robbers ended up saying, like, even if they got their cut, like, it was a curse and they didn't live this rich lifestyle in Mexico and Spain. Like, a bunch of them moved to these places.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  And served shorter sentences because I think parole was brought in after they were sentenced. It wasn't even like a thing in England until then.

• 44:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  But retroactively, they were able to get out in like, you know, ten or fourteen years. And then, you know, supposedly he had some of this money still hidden away, but most of them ended up, like, one guy committed suicide, one guy died in a medical trial.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Geez.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  That he signed up for. Um, one guy was murdered.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, by a hitman on a bike in Spain.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, most of them have these awful sort of ending stories and they didn't live it out like Sexy Beast to like Ray Winstone on the Spanish Riviera.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Uh, I think some of that might have been influenced by, some of that movie might have been influenced by this.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  A lot of Great Britain's love of gangsters was influenced by these guys.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were definitely looked up to and, um, it's pretty interesting.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  I've got a little more on Biggs, the Ballad of Biggs.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  A Biggsy?

• 45:01Speaker 04

  So he, I mean, he really is like a folk hero in, in, against anti, or with anti-establishment types in the UK.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  In part because he was, you know, living openly in the face of, you know, British authority. And it irked the British enough that a group of ex-British military in nineteen eighty-one kidnapped him from Brazil and put him on a boat and got as far as Barbados where they had boat trouble.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 45:32Speaker 04

  And they were picked up by the Barbadian authorities and it turns out Barbados doesn't have an extradition treaty with the UK either. So he got sent back to Brazil. And supposedly these ex-military were saying that they planned on, I guess, getting some sort of reward from the British Crown for bringing this guy back.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:51Speaker 04

  But it's also been supposed that that was actually a plausible deniability cover that it was actually like the British really tried to have this guy kidnapped.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  That wouldn't surprise me.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  He, yeah, he finally turned himself in and died in 2009, but he turned himself in in like 2000. He started having like, um, failing health. So he's like, I guess I'll go live out my life in jail.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  For some reason.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  And I think he went to like an old man's hospital jail.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  Back in the UK.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Uh, and not all of them at, you know, gross untimely demises, you know, several of them just kind of retired or went back to their work as florists and, uh,

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, cordy.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Sort of retired with their family in Sussex or London or, uh, sort of around England and, um, but apparently none of them like got rich off this or they're not talking if they did.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Still.

• 46:39Speaker 04

  Well, good, good. Yeah, Good's wrote a book. So there you go.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  There you have it.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Uh, if you want to know more about the great train robbery, a great place to start is the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And since I said, "Search bar," it's time for listener mail.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm gonna call this horse milk.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  In our animal domestication podcast, we talked about horse milk and I, I can't remember what I said. I probably said it was gross or something.

• 47:05Speaker 04

  Well, I think we said like, we want to hear from people who've had it. And I figured we'd hear from a couple of people, but I'm blown away by how many people have had a brush with horse milk.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  A lot of people liked it too. This is not one of them. Uh, hey guys, just listened to, uh, the podcast on animal domestication. Wanted to tell you about the revolting drink called Kumas from Kazakhstan. That's K U M I S.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Mila Kumas.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Mila Kumas. Uh, it is similar to the more familiar product Kiefer, uh, which we talked about that in, uh, something else, right?

• 47:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like,

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Cheese or something?

• 47:36Speaker 04

  It's like Balki's version of sour milk. It's Bulgarian, I think.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he said it's made from, uh, horse milk. Uh, because horse milk has more natural sugars than cow, sheep or goat milk, Kumas ends up being mildly alcoholic after fermentation.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Uh, imagine the sourness of raw yogurt mixed with the bite of a shot of vodka.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  And round it all out with the disgusting tang of horse milk and you've got Kumas.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  Well, I don't understand that last part. Like I, I don't have anything to equate that with horse milk. Vodka, check. Sour, like fermented yogurt.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  But you don't know that disgusting tang.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  No. And I want to know now.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  You know, in Toronto, when I was there, my friend Chris, uh, from Let's Drink About It ate horse meat.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Like in front of you?

• 48:19Speaker 02

  No, I was supposed to go out to dinner with them, but I was sick. And after we recorded, they went out and the next day he was like, dude, I ate horse meat yesterday. I went.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Did they go to Ikea?

• 48:26Speaker 02

  No, they went to some, one of those adventurous restaurants. And I was like, Josh would have been all over that, but not me. No, thank you.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  You'd eat horse meat, right? You'd try it out.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  Probably.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  But not horse milk.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  Only if the horse died of old age.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Uh, so Greg says I drank it.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  In its sleep.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Well, that's what they said. They supposedly, all of them, they're called, uh, what do you call them?

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Barbarians.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Something horses, like, uh.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Old, dead horses?

• 48:51Speaker 02

  No, basically there were horses that died of natural causes. They called them like.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  Senior, senior horses?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  No, like, uh.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Golden age horses?

• 48:59Speaker 02

  No. There's a word.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  There's a lot of words. I can say them all.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  So Greg drank it in Kazakhstan and he said it was served in a bowl, uh, what he would describe as a bowl. You get cocktail peanuts. Uh, like you would get cocktail peanuts in.

• 49:13Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Instead of a bowl of peanuts, it's a bowl of this disgusting drink.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  I've lived in the Caucasus for four years now. I've had my share of questionable foods. And the only thing I found more disagreeable than a saucer of kumus was a pickled rooster comb.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  He said it was all skin and cartilage. It felt like I was eating an ear.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Man, that is from Greg.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  That's called using every part of the animal.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, Greg, you just blew my mind.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  Same here, man.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  I wish I could think of the horses, uh.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Not like freedom horses, but it was something like that.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  Freedom horses.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  There's a word.

• 49:47Speaker 04

  The horses that want you to eat them.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Donor horses?

• 49:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Well, we'll find out and tell everybody next time, okay?

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, the essential is they're horses that died of natural causes. They weren't killed for their meat.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  I got you.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  Uh, if you want to let us know about an experience you had that is fascinating or amazing, uh, you can tweet it to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to [email protected]. And you can hang out with us at our home on the web, the internet clubhouse known as stuffyoushouldknow.com.

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• 52:12Speaker 06

  Hello?

• 52:13Speaker 07

  Hey, it's me, your wallet.

• 52:15Speaker 06

  Oh, hey.

• 52:16Speaker 07

  I was just wondering if we could maybe take it easy this week?

• 52:20Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 52:20Speaker 07

  Really?

• 52:21Speaker 06

  Yep, I'm shopping at Food Lion.

• 52:23Speaker 07

  Wait, you mean low prices?

• 52:25Speaker 06

  And MVP savings.

• 52:27Speaker 07

  Oh, you do care.

• 52:28Speaker 06

  Obviously.

• 52:29Speaker 07

  Okay, I feel better.

• 52:30Speaker 06

  Good, now let's go get some snacks.

• 52:34Speaker 08

  At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.