1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 The night the mail train stopped — and £2.6 million disappeared into the Buckinghamshire darkness. Rainbow Valley – bringing you the stories from the decade that shook the world. In the early hours of 8 August 1963, a Royal Mail train travelling overnight from Glasgow to London approached a red signal in the Buckinghamshire countryside. The signal was false. Waiting in the darkness was a gang of men about to carry out one of the most audacious crimes in British history. This episode of Rainbow Valley tells the extraordinary story of The Great Train Robbery — the meticulously planned raid that netted the thieves around £2.6 million, an almost unimaginable sum at the time, and immediately became front-page news around the world. We follow the story from the tampering of the railway signals and the stopping of the train at Sears Crossing to the violent attack on driver Jack Mills, the removal of the money at Bridego Bridge, and the gang's hurried retreat to Leatherslade Farm. It was there that an operation which had depended upon careful planning began to unravel rather spectacularly. We look at the men behind the robbery, including Bruce Reynolds and the soon-to-be-notorious Ronnie Biggs, the enormous police investigation that followed, the clues the gang left behind and the arrests, trials, prison sentences and extraordinary escapes that ensured the story continued long after the stolen cash had vanished. And we also consider how the Great Train Robbery became part of British folklore. Over the years the thieves were sometimes portrayed as cheeky, almost romantic rogues pulling off the crime of the century. The reality — particularly the brutal treatment of Jack Mills — was considerably less glamorous. It is a story of planning, nerve, greed, mistakes, manhunts and myth-making, played out against the unmistakable backdrop of Britain in the summer of 1963. Rainbow Valley – bringing you the stories from the decade that shook the world. All episodes of Rainbow Valley are available wherever you download your podcasts and at: https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/rainbowvalley #RainbowValley #GreatTrainRobbery #GreatTrainRobbery1963 #1963 #BritishHistory #SixtiesBritain #1960s #CrimeHistory #TrueCrime #RonnieBiggs #BruceReynolds #RoyalMail #Podcast Rainbow Valley http://rainbowvalley.libsyn.com/podcast <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5700487/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/88AA3C/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/content/202059715