Train Robberies That Derailed

Train Robberies That Derailed: From the Reno brothers in 1866 to the Wild Bunch in 1899, train robbery was the signature crime of the rail age, and a surprising number of jobs went badly wrong. Dynamite destroyed the loot, bad intelligence missed the payroll car, and bandits met messengers armed with ice mallets. The stories also show how railroads, detectives, and forensic science learned to fight back.

Reno Gang: In October 1866 the Reno brothers robbed a moving train in Indiana, an early holdup of its kind that netted about $10,000. Their crime spree ended in 1868 when vigilantes lynched three of the brothers inside a New Albany jail.

Adair Iowa: Jesse James's gang pulled a rail loose in July 1873 to stop a Rock Island train, but the engine plunged into a ditch and killed the engineer. They had expected a gold shipment that had traveled on an earlier train, and got only about $3,000.

Wilcox Train Robbery: In June 1899 the Wild Bunch stopped a Union Pacific train in Wyoming and used so much dynamite on the express car that it was blown apart, scattering banknotes across the prairie. A sheriff leading the pursuit was later killed.

Black Jack Ketchum: In August 1899 he tried to rob a train alone in New Mexico and the conductor's shotgun cost him an arm. Hanged in 1901 for felonious assault upon a railway train, he was decapitated when the drop proved too long.

Bill Miner: Called the Gray Fox, he and his gang held up a Canadian Pacific train near Kamloops, British Columbia, in 1906 and fled with about $15 and a bottle of liniment. They had missed the main money shipment, and a posse caught them.

Great Train Robbery 1963: On 8 August 1963 a gang halted the Glasgow to London mail train in Buckinghamshire and escaped with about 2.6 million pounds. The August bank holiday weekend had packed the cars with cash, far more than expected, and the police dragnet soon began closing in.

Great Gold Robbery 1855: Thieves with copied keys swapped gold bars bound for Paris for lead shot on a London to Folkestone train. Edward Agar, who had been transported to Australia for another crime, betrayed his accomplices in exchange for support for his mistress.

Lincheng Outrage: In May 1923 bandits derailed the luxury Blue Express in Shandong, China, and took roughly 300 passengers hostage, including about 25 foreigners. Among them was Lucy Aldrich, sister in law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., and the standoff ended with the bandits absorbed into the Chinese army.

Kakori Conspiracy: In August 1925 Indian revolutionaries stopped a train near Lucknow and seized about 4,600 rupees of government cash to fund their fight against British rule. A passenger was accidentally shot dead, and four of the plotters were hanged in 1927.

DeAutremont Brothers: In October 1923 three brothers used far too much dynamite on a mail car in Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains, killing four railway employees and wrecking the car without opening the safe. They were not caught until 1927, after a worldwide manhunt.

Wagner Montana Robbery: Kid Curry's gang blew open a Great Northern safe in July 1901 and got away with about $40,000 in unsigned banknotes. The money was hard to spend, and attempts to pass it helped investigators trace and arrest Wild Bunch members.

Ben Kilpatrick: The Wild Bunch veteran known as the Tall Texan was killed in 1912 trying to rob a Southern Pacific train in Texas when express messenger David Trousdale struck him with an ice mallet. Trousdale then shot Kilpatrick's accomplice dead.

Glenrowan: In June 1880 the Kelly gang tore up rails to derail a police train in Victoria, Australia. Local teacher Thomas Curnow slipped away and stopped the train by waving a red scarf over a candle.

Big Nose George Parrott: His gang tried to wreck a Union Pacific train in Wyoming in 1878 by pulling spikes, but the damage was spotted in time. After he was lynched in 1881, a local doctor, John Osborne, had shoes made from his skin; Osborne later became governor of Wyoming.

Winston Train Robbery: Jesse James's gang killed conductor William Westfall and a passenger during a July 1881 holdup in Missouri. The governor placed a huge bounty on Jesse's head, and he was shot dead by Robert Ford in April 1882.

Leatherslade Farm: After the 1963 mail train robbery, the gang hid at this Buckinghamshire farm, where police found fingerprints on a Monopoly set and a ketchup bottle. A man hired to burn the place down never did it.

Ronnie Biggs: A minor player in the 1963 robbery, he became its most famous face after escaping Wandsworth Prison in 1965 over the wall by rope ladder. He lived in Brazil for decades, appeared on a 1978 Sex Pistols record, and returned to Britain in 2001.

Big Springs Nebraska: Sam Bass and Joel Collins stopped a Union Pacific train in September 1877 and took $60,000 in newly minted twenty dollar gold coins, a record haul for the railroad. The gang split up, and most members were hunted down within months.

Verdi Nevada: In November 1870 a gang stopped a Central Pacific train at Verdi and took about $41,000 in coin. Most of the robbers were caught within weeks, in one of the earliest train robberies in the West.

Edward Heinrich: The Berkeley criminologist known as the American Sherlock Holmes studied a pair of overalls left at the DeAutremont scene and deduced that the owner was a left handed lumberjack. His analysis set investigators on the brothers' trail.

Bruce Reynolds: The suspected mastermind of the 1963 mail train robbery spent years on the run, including time in Mexico, before being arrested in Torquay in 1968. He was sentenced to 25 years and served about ten.

Bridego Bridge: The 1963 gang stopped the mail train here with a doctored signal and unloaded 120 mailbags in about 15 minutes, leaving eight behind for lack of room in their trucks.

Garrettsville Ohio: The Barker Karpis gang took about $34,000 from an Erie Railroad mail train in November 1935, an event often described as the last big train robbery in the US. Alvin Karpis was captured months later and spent decades in prison, much of it at Alcatraz.

The Great Train Robbery 1903: Edwin S. Porter's twelve minute Edison film, shot in New Jersey, ends with a bandit firing straight at the camera. It helped establish the Western and showed audiences how editing could tell a story.