ARMED ROBBERS IN A TRAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14947, 21 March 1912, Page 9

ARMED ROBBERS IN A TRAIN.

VALUABLE BOOTY SECURED.

A daring jobbery was effected in the early morning of February 7 on a train* on the Rock Island railway, .near Memphis, U.S.A., by five brigands, who escaped with a large booty, including £15,000 consigned to a bank at Oklahoma.

The train left Memphis at midnight, and two masked men who had concealed themselves on the top of the train climbed over the tender, and covered the engine-driver and his fireman with their revolvers. They bound and gagged the driver, and slowed down the train sufficiently to throw him into a wayside ditch. They .then ordered the fireman to drive the train a few miles further, where it was stopped beside a camp fire. ,

Three other bandits here joined the original two, and then, while the crew oil the train were held under cover of revolvers, the rest of the train was uncoupled from the first two cars, consisting of the post orlico van and a Wells Pargo parcels van. The robbers then jumped on board, and ordered the fireman to restart the locomotive. After running for 10 miles the train was again stopped at the command of the robbers, and the mail bags were rifled and tho safes in the Wells Fargo car dynamited. Tho • bandits then disappeared in the woods.

Meanwhile the crew of the train attempted to telegraph to but found that the wires had been cut. The noise of the dynamite explosion, however, reached Memphis, and caused uneasiness owing to an unsuccessful attempt to "hold up " the same train in November last. A locomotive with a posse of armed men was immediately despatched from Memphis, but there was no trace of the robbers, and a search for 12 hours in the woods adjoining tho line afforded no clue.