How to Rob a Train

According to John Boessenecker, author of Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West, Andrew Jackson “Big Jack” Davis's 1870 train robbery “technique” was “used by train robbers for another fifty years”:

1. Slip aboard a train as it leaves town
2. Capture “the crew.”
3. Uncouple “the engine, coal tender, and express car from the passenger coaches,” preventing armed “passengers . . . from interfering with the holdup.”
4. Procede along the rails to meet “an accomplice” holding “saddle horses and pack mules.”
5. Force the “express messenger” to surrender “gold coins.”
6. Escape “into the night" (108)