Indepth » Viewpoint » Science » home shop · help · contact · search Ronnie Biggs and the Great Train Robbery Martin O'Malley, CBC News Online | May 2001 Ronnie Biggs S o Ronnie Biggs has come home to England, after all these years. It could mean 28 years in the slammer, but Biggs, a droll fellow, says he wants a pint of English beer in a proper English pub. Truth is, he's suffered some strokes and wants to avail himself of British medicine. Biggs was one of the members of the Great Train Robbery gang. He's now 71 and something of a folk hero, though he was never regarded as a mastermind of the daring dawn robbery on August 8, 1963. Biggs escaped the maximum security wing of London's Wandsworth prison in 1965. He has been on the lam for 35 years, living a decent life in Australia, Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. Months, if not years, went into planning the robbery of the mail train from Glasgow to London. Some 20 people, men and women, were involved in the heist of $7,500,000 in £1 and £5 notes, an amount estimated to be worth $100 million by today's standards. It was the biggest robbery ever. The day after the robbery, a reward of $750,000 was posted for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of gang members. The huge size of the heist was no coincidence. The gang knew that bank branches have large surpluses of cash after a national holiday, and much of that cash was being delivered to London on the mail train. A popular hobby in Britain is "train-spotting," whereby people watch trains and compile log books of engine numbers, so gang members knew they would not have been conspicuous as they devoted months to studying different sections of track, looking for the ideal location. T his turned out to be a straight stretch between Leighton Buzzard and Tring, particularly the three-kilometre stretch between Sears Crossing and the village of Cheddington. Gang members were allowed the occasional cigarette, if they carried each butt away in a matchbox so as not to leave fingerprints. The robbers ingeniously rigged the train signals to make the train stop exactly where they wanted. One of them climbed the signal gantry at Sears Crossing and covered the green signal with an old leather glove. Then they wired a cluster of six-volt batteries from a flashlight to activate the red light. When the mail train stopped, the fireman, David Whitby, climbed down and walked to a phone to get instructions. One of the gang approached and Whitby, assuming it was a railway worker, asked, "What's up mate?" The gang member motioned Whitby to follow and soon Whitby was wrestled to the ground, and thrown down a steep embankment. "Shout and we'll kill you!" a gang member warned him. Biggs' big moment came further along the tracks. The train's driver and engineer were handcuffed, dragged out of the engine-room, then forced to lie face down on the grass beside the tracks. It was Biggs' job to guard the two men. Always a jovial fellow, Biggs reassured the two men, taking care to explain that they wouldn't be hurt if they did what they were told. "I should keep quiet if I were you, mate," Biggs told the driver, a man named Jack Mills. "There are some right bastards here." Moments later, Biggs told Mills, "I'll get your name and address when this is all over and send you a few quid." The day of the train robbery happened to be Biggs' 34th birthday. N o guns were used in the hold-up, which went so quickly and smoothly that 20 postal workers sorting mail in 10 of the train cars didn't know what happened until the robbers had left. The Daily Telegraph at the time estimated that if the 20 thieves shared the loot equally and invested their shares at five per cent, each would have an income for life of about $19,000 a year – big money back then. There were reports that when the robbers were hiding out they played Monopoly with real money.