DARING RAILWAY HOLD-UP

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3438, 16 September 1913, Page 5

DARING RAILWAY HOLD-UP

TWO CASH-BOXES STOLEN

SENSATION AT BROKEN HILL,

AN AMAZING STORY

[UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.]

(Received Sept. 15, 9.10 p.in.) SYDNEY, Sept. 15. A daring crime was committed at Broken Hill on Sunday night, when two masked and armed men held up the Broken Hill to Adelaide express between Sijlpbide Street station and the Railway Town station, and got away with two cash boxes containing between £IOO and £l5O in notes, gold, and silver. The distance between the platforms is only a mile and the holdup was cleverly planned. The Silverten Tramway Company is accustomed to send large amounts from Sulphide Street to Railway Town on Sunday nights. The Company controls the line from Broken Hill to the border.

A ticket clerk named McGuire deposited the cash boxes in the guard’s van. McGuire, the guard (Finlayson) and assistant guard (Hawes), remained in the van.

The express departed at 8.30' and had gone two chains when two masked men jumped aboard and crawled along the footboard to the van. They smashed the windows with an iron bar and presented revolvers and yelled “hands up!” Ono desperado remarked to the other: “Keep them covered while I get in. If you have any rot from them shoot!” He then scrambled in, hurled the cash boxes out of the window, got out, and then the pair jumped off the train, which was going slowly. They picked up the boxes, and rushed through an adjacent wood yard. _ A lady passenger saw them disappear in the darkness. AIL .this happened almost in town, and’ a porter saw the robbers leave and jumped down and' pursued them, but fruitlessly. The police immediately scoured the district, but. unsuccessfully.