Editing Great Train Robbery (1963) (section)

===Royal Mail train===
At 18:50 on Wednesday 7 August 1963, the [[travelling post office]] (TPO) "Up Special" train set off from [[Glasgow Central station]] en route to [[Euston railway station|Euston Station]] in London. It was scheduled to arrive at Euston at 04:00 the following morning. The train was hauled by [[British Rail Class 40|English Electric Type 4]] (later Class 40) diesel-electric locomotive [[British Rail Class 40#D326: The Great Train Robbery, 1963|D326]] (later 40&nbsp;126). The train consisted of 12 carriages and carried 72 [[General Post Office|Post Office]] staff who sorted mail during the journey.

Mail was loaded onto the train at [[Glasgow]], during additional station stops en route, and from line-side collection points where local post office staff would hang mail sacks on elevated track-side hooks that were caught by nets deployed by the on-board staff. Sorted mail on the train could be dropped off at the same time. This process of exchange allowed mail to be distributed locally without delaying the train with unnecessary stops. One of the carriages involved in the robbery is preserved at the [[Nene Valley Railway]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Travelling Post Office (Night Mail) |url=https://nvr.org.uk/article.php/155/travelling-post-office-night-mail |website=Nene Valley Railway |publisher=Nene Valley Railway Ltd |access-date=11 December 2023}}</ref>

The second carriage behind the engine was known as the HVP (high-value packages) coach, which carried large amounts of money and registered mail for sorting. Usually, the value of the shipment was in the region of £300,000, but because the previous weekend had been a UK [[Bank Holiday]] weekend, the total on the day of the robbery was to be between £2.5 and £3 million.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=http://www.btp.police.uk/History%20Society/Publications/History%20Society/Crime%20on%20line/The%20Great%20Train%20Robbery.htm
 |title=British Transport Police History: The Great Train Robbery
 |publisher=[[British Transport Police]]
 |access-date=25 July 2007
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070701111011/http://www.btp.police.uk/History%20Society/Publications/History%20Society/Crime%20on%20line/The%20Great%20Train%20Robbery.htm
 |archive-date=1 July 2007
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>

In 1960, the Post Office Investigation Branch (IB) recommended the fitting of alarms to all TPOs with HVP carriages. This recommendation was implemented in 1961, but HVP carriages without alarms were retained in reserve. By August 1963, three HVP carriages were equipped with alarms, bars over the windows and bolts and catches on the doors, but at the time of the robbery, these carriages were out of service, so a reserve carriage (M30204M) without those features had to be used. The fitting of radios was also considered, but they were deemed to be too expensive, and the measure was not implemented.<ref name="PMA">[https://artsandculture.google.com/story/aAWRARcgrhkA8A The Great Train Robbery] by the [[British Postal Museum and Archive]] at The Google cultural institute [https://artsandculture.google.com/story/aAWRARcgrhkA8A]. Retrieved 29 October 2013</ref> This carriage was kept for evidence for seven years following the event and then burned at a scrapyard in Norfolk in the presence of police and post office officials to deter any souvenir hunters.