Abraham Lincoln

John Hopkins (0:02)

It is the 8th of August, 1963 A huge featureless freight train is cutting through the dark countryside of Buckinghamshire, an hour north of London. It's just about to hit 3 o'clock in the morning, and the moon is bright in a pure black sky.

The Royal Mail train is on the last leg of a 9-hour journey from Edinburgh to London, having set off at just before 7 p.m. the night before.

Now it winds its way between the dark rolling hills of southeast England. Inside are over 70 post office workers sorting mail and counting bills through the night. 25-year-old Dave Whitby sits alongside the senior driver, 58-year-old Jack Mills. Between them, they're in charge of 12 carriages. Whitby is tired but experienced. He's done this route with this train many times. But through the train's front window, up ahead in the black, he sees something different, something unexpected. There is a red light glowing down the track. He knows this particular stretch, but he's never seen a red light here before, only ever green, ushering him and his cargo ahead. But what's really odd is that he hasn't received word of any trouble on the line from anybody. Spotting it too, Mills does what any train driver would do and slows to a stop.

They pull to a halt at the signal at a spot known as Sears Crossing. The light stays red. So Whitby climbs down from the cab and goes out to see what the holdup is.

With the engine still rumbling behind him, Whitby picks his way alongside the track and approaches the signal. As he gets closer, he frowns. Just below the glare of the red light, there's a faint glow of green. As Whitby peers at it, letting his eyes adjust, he realizes to his horror what the problem is. The green signal is on after all, only it has been covered by thick glove. The word sabotage sounds in his head. He checks around the signal unit itself and confirms it. The back has been tampered with, the wires exposed, but more wires have been added too. He follows them along and discovers that they are connected to a 6 volt battery. Someone, for some reason, has boosted the red light by an outside source. The unit has been hijacked.

He scans the track in both directions, but he still sees no one. He needs to report this, so he runs the short distance along the gravel to the phone box and picks up the receiver. The line is dead. He checks the back of the box and his heart sinks. The cables have been cut. Turning, he runs back to the train and its front cab, panic rising. But before he gets there, he's pulled back. And not just by one person, but several. He struggles instinctively, but there's too many of them. And soon he's on the ground. As he tries to get up, he sees masked, hooded men, maybe 10 or 12 of them, pouring out of the shadows, through the bushes and up onto the train itself.

He shouts out to warn Mills, but it is already too late. Whitby watches in horror as the driver is hauled out of the cab and onto the gravel.

When Mills tries to resist, one of the masked men swing a kosh or leather baton at his head, and he drops to the ground like a coat from a hanger.

But Whitby has his own battle to fight. Giving one last heave to free himself from his assailants, he loses his footing. One of the men seizes his chance and pushes him hard, away from the tracks and down the steep embankment. The ground drops away and Whitby tumbles. He's battered by impact after impact as he rolls down the incline too fast to stop himself, until suddenly he sees a rock coming towards him and everything goes black.

Ray Rose (4:26)

Black.

John Hopkins (4:41)

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 is a cornerstone of British crime folklore. It saw a gang of Korean criminals and their associates stage a daring heist to steal the multi-million pound cargo of a traveling Royal Mail train.

Pulling it off took intricate planning, not to mention plenty of bravado and luck. The investigation that followed was one of the biggest police operations in British history, spanning many years and covering the globe. But how did the idea of the heist come about? What went into the planning and who were the key players? And did any of them truly get away? I'm John Hopkins and this is a Short History Of The Great Train Robbery.

The 1960s are a time of change for Great Britain. As it finds its economic feat again after the devastation of the Second World War, the social landscape is changing too. Ray Rose is a documentary filmmaker and true crime researcher who specializes in British crime from the 1950s.