The First Great Train Robbery
Copyright Year: 1979
Plot
In the year 1855, England and France were at war with Russia in the Crimea. The English troops were paid with gold. Once a month 25 thousand pounds in gold was loaded into strongboxes inside the bank of Huddleston and Bradford and taken by trusted armed guards to the railway station. The convoy took no fixed route or timetable. At the station, the gold was loaded into the luggage van of the Folkestone train for shipment to the coast and from there, to the Crimea. The strongboxes were placed in two specially-built Chubb safes, constructed of three-quarter inch tempered steel. Each safe weighed five hundred and fifty pounds. Each safe was fitted with two locks, requiring two keys - or four keys all together. For security, each key was individually protected: two keys were entrusted to the railway despatcher who kept them locked in his office; a third was in the custody of a Mr Edgar Trent, President of the Huddleston and Bradford; and the fourth key was given to Mr Henry Fowler, Manager of Huddleston and Bradford Bank. The presence of so much gold in one place naturally aroused the interests of the English criminal elements. But in 1855, there had never been a robbery from a moving railway train . . .
The First Great Train Robbery
Cast
- Sean Connery as Simms
- Donald Sutherland as Agar
Agar: Bloody hell, you look a sight!
Simms: I look a sight?
Agar: No, but you're all covered in soot.
Simms: It's the smoke. I haven't brought a change of clothing.
Agar: Well that's brilliant of you, isn't it? What are you going to wear coming off Folkestone station?
[Agar notices Simms eyeing his clothing]
Agar: Oh no! Oh no! Bloody hell! You paint me green; You make me lie in a coffin with a stinking rotten dead cat. Now you strip me bollock-naked: No! Bloody hell!
The First Great Train Robbery
