The Great Train Robbery

4

4V50 Gary

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That's the classic 1903 silent film. It had a startling end with a deadpan faced cowboy points his revolver at the audience and begins firing. I never noticed until recently that he's firing in the double action mode. Double action revolvers were around when The Great Train Robbery was filmed and were available even during the Civil War, but what gun did he use? It's from 11:26 onwards.

The Great Train Robbery
 
FWIW, I think it is a Model 1877 (Lightning or Thunderer) with the 4 1/2" barrel and no ejector rod, a fairly common setup.

Since the folks in 1903 were closer to the "Old West" than we are, it appears they had not been infected with the "noble and romantic outlaw" myth. There is nothing romantic about those terrorists.

Jim
 
That could have been Cassidy and Sundance live and in person.
Anyone know where the first train robbery took place and by whom?
Hint - it was east of the Mississippi, not out west.
No fair using Wiki.
 
How about stealing an entire train? Some daring Unionists did that and a couple received the Medal of Honor for it. First hand account is published as: Daring and Suffering.
 
Great Britain, 1857, world's first robbery of a moving train. Theft of gold going to British troops in Crimea.

Michael Crichton novel, The Great Train Robbery, and a good Sean Connery film, he was trying to break out of the James Bond roles and made it with this picture.

I know this because I have more movies on disc than I have .22LR shells.
 
Apart from war, that is.
When and by whom was the first passenger train robbery in the USA?
Like in the movie.
And the answer is, indeed, the Reno gang in Indiana, 1866.
Gaucho Gringo wins the grand prize of a heartfelt handshake.
 
That's not a train robbery, it's a high volume kidnapping.
Or maybe a vehicle hijack.
Probably depends on whether it was full of people or cows.
 
Thank you. The James-Younger gang in it's many incarnations is more famous in American folklore. They robbed both trains and banks. But the Reno Gang was the first in the US in train robberies. Can anyone name the last of the traditional train robberies?
 
Bet a guy on a good horse might still be able to catch an Amtrak train.
I'd guess the last real train robbery must have occurred in the 1930s, during the Great Depression.
 
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