I just watched the 2-part BBC miniseries on the Great Train Robbery of 1963, which I highly recomend if you have Netflix. But it made me wonder if such a daring robbery could be executed today.
my guess is no. For one thing, if a lone is equipped with CTC, even if the signals were tampered with, dispatchers would imeadietly notice the train making an unscheduled stop. Also most locomotives now have radios on board. If the train encountered a tampered-with signal, the crew would most certainly radio the dispatcher.
What are your thoughts?
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According to some stuff I've read, such robberies do take place, after a fashion. The thieves (probably tipped off by someone who knows what's in each container) stop a train by causing an emergency application in a uninhabited area.
Before a crewmember can walk the train to find the reason, they've broken into a container, emptied it, and are on their way...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I have been told that this has always been a problem along the border in El Paso and another reason for moving the U.P. fueling stop to Santa Teresa, N.M.
John Timm
Albuquerque and Belen were just brought up again on a USA Today article on that subject. LA Basin has similar issues. I don't think the OP statement could happen today though. All the particulars and logistics have changed drastically since '63 on both sides of the pond.
I was in Britain for the 50th anniversary of the robbery. All of the articles reflected on how people regarded it as some sort of romantic adventure, Ronnie Biggs and all that, but they all emphasised how the train crew was seriously hurt and how the driver's life was shortened by the severe concussion he received. The general conclusion was that there was nothing romantic about it, just a bunch of sleazy criminals.
Please remember how quickly all of the train robbers except Ronnie Biggs were caught and sent to jail for a LONG time. Ronnie Bigges had to run and hide in Brazil until he finally had to come home and spent time in jail as well. Even the robbers in the Lufthanza heist in New York wound up arrested or dead within a short period of time. None of the 6 million dollars from that heist was ever recovered.
ndbprr First you need something of value on the train.
First you need something of value on the train.
IIRC, the Biggs train robbery targeted a parcel/mail express train with a lot of valuables and cash;not commodites you are likely to find riding the rails these days, at least in North America.
Are there still "Royal Mail trains" operating in the UK?
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
carnej1 IIRC, the Biggs train robbery targeted a parcel/mail express train with a lot of valuables and cash;not commodites you are likely to find riding the rails these days, at least in North America. Are there still "Royal Mail trains" operating in the UK?
UPS and it's parcel deliveries are a signifigant railroad intermodal customer, with most of it's trailers clearly identified.
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carnej1not commodites you are likely to find riding the rails these days, at least in North America.
Can't discount the value of a large screen TV. I figure that a 40 foot container would hold about 360 60" TVs. One model that popped up on a search retails for over $1200. That would put the retail value at over $400,000 for a container. It's not the 50 million pounds (in today's currency) that the robbers took, but it's still nothing to sneeze at...
Stealing money is one thing, it is compact and be carried off. Stealing a container of TV's is another, they are heavy and and bulky, so theives aren't going to steal an entire container of TV's off the train by unloading individual TV's from the container on the train. If they want an entire container of TV's they will steal the container after its grounded, off the train and on a chassis. Then unload it at someplace else where they will have time (and a forklift).
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Cargo thieves are often brazen.. its not as if they try to sneak off a container and hope nobody notices. Several years ago I worked for a carrier that became a victim of one of these bandits. A driver came into our yard with his bobtail truck, walked into dispatch, and loudly announced he was here to pickup a load of lumber. Our dispatchers ASSUMED he was legit, and handed him the bills, and away he went. He even asked for a coffee to go on his way out! Only when another driver arrived to pickup the same load did our people know that they had been had... but by then that load of lumber was long gone.. never to be seen again!
I have been told by some rails I know that there is an area in Detroit crews call "The Ho Chi Min Trail". Trains either travel the area slowly or have to stop for signals and are frequently looted.
Not positive as to the veracity of the story but it certainly sounds plausable.
Norm
There are still Royal Mail trains in the U.K, but RPOs are long gone. I recall a few years ago that 8 boxcars were left on a siding in the South Bronx for some reason. They were broken into and cleaned out by everyone in the neighbourhood once it was discovered that they were all full of beer.
caldreamer Please remember how quickly all of the train robbers except Ronnie Biggs were caught and sent to jail for a LONG time. Ronnie Bigges had to run and hide in Brazil until he finally had to come home and spent time in jail as well. Even the robbers in the Lufthanza heist in New York wound up arrested or dead within a short period of time. None of the 6 million dollars from that heist was ever recovered.
Well, there's always going to be attempts to rob freight/intermodal trains and the railroads spend much on security/railroad police to combat the perpetrators.
The "Conrail Boyz" robbery ring in New Jersey was a good example of a very organized robbery crew that stole miilions of dollars in merchandise.
The practices were so prevalent that Conrail had a specially modified TrailVan TOFC trailer with dummy electronics boxes and a hidden compartment for police officers. the truck would be parked in a high robbery area and the cops would wait for a perp to break the seal on the trailer.
It was featured in an early episode of the TV show "Cops"..
But the original poster was asking about "Megaheists" like the UK train robbery rather than Garden variety theft and pilferage.
It's the difference between the old organized crime racket of truck hijacking versus the famous Lufthansa Heist at Keendy airport (both operations are depicted in the film "Goodfellas")...
I've heard trains moving slowly don't stop the determined theives. There were rumors of issues in Fort Wayne in the late '70s where thieves would climb on ipiggy-back cars and throw items off all along the R/W while moving near downtown and have their friends collect the stuff.
I sure recall the Lufthansa robbery and also when the bodies started turning up in garbage trucks like in the film. I heard that it was mostly money that was exchanged by U.S. tourists and worn out bills used on the American bases in Germany back then. I stayed overnight on a U.S. base near Stuttgart near that time when I was in the Navy and the U.S. money was filthy! It rarely made it back to the States to be replaced. Or stolen.
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