THE FIRST GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

In 1855, Edward Pierce, a member of London's high society, is secretly a master thief. He plans to steal a monthly shipment of gold from the London-to-Folkestone train that is meant as payment for British troops fighting in the Crimean War. Two heavy safes in the baggage car guard the gold, each of which has two locks, requiring a total of four keys. Pierce recruits pickpocket and screwsman Robert Agar. Pierce's mistress Miriam and his chauffeur Barlow join the plot, and train guard Burgess is bribed into participation. To hide the robbers' intentions, wax impressions are to be made of each of the keys.

Pierce ingratiates himself with Edgar Trent, the bank's president, by feigning a shared interest in ratting. He also begins courting Trent's daughter, Elizabeth, and learns from her the location of her father's key. Pierce and Agar break into Trent's home at night, locate the key and make a wax impression before making a getaway.

Pierce targets Henry Fowler, the bank's manager, through his weakness for prostitutes. Miriam poses as "Madame Lucienne", a courtesan in an exclusive bordello, meets with Fowler and asks him to undress, forcing him to remove the key worn round his neck. While Miriam distracts Fowler, Agar makes an impression of his key. Pierce then stages a phony police raid to rescue Miriam, forcing Fowler to flee to avoid a scandal.

The two remaining keys are locked in a cabinet at the offices of the South Eastern Railway at the London Bridge railway station. After a daytime diversionary tactic with a child pickpocket fails, Pierce decides to try again at night. The officer guarding the railway office at night leaves his post only once, for seventy-five seconds, to go to the toilet. Pierce plans to use cat burglar Clean Willy to climb the station's wall, climb down into the station, enter the office via a skylight in the ceiling, and open the key cabinet from within. Because Clean Willy is incarcerated at Newgate Prison, Pierce and Agar first have to arrange for him to break out, using a public execution as a distraction. With Willy's help, the criminals make impressions of the keys without detection.

Clean Willy is subsequently arrested after being caught pick-pocketing and informs on Pierce. The police use Willy to lure Pierce into a trap, but the latter eludes capture. Clean Willy escapes from his captors, but Pierce finds him in a bar and murders him. The authorities, now aware of the upcoming robbery, increase security by having the baggage car padlocked from the outside until the train arrives at its destination and forbidding anyone but the guard to travel in the baggage van. Any container large enough to hold a man must be opened and inspected before it is loaded on the train.

Pierce smuggles Agar into the baggage car disguised as a corpse in a coffin. Pierce plans to reach the car across the coach roofs while the train is under way, but he and Miriam encounter Fowler, who is riding the train to Folkestone to accompany the shipment. After arranging for Miriam to travel in the same compartment as Fowler to distract him, Pierce travels down the roof of the train and unlocks the baggage van's door from the outside. He and Agar replace the gold with lead bars and toss the bags of gold off the train at a prearranged point. However, soot from the engine's smoke has stained Pierce's skin and clothes, and he is forced to borrow Agar's suit, which is much too small for him. The jacket splits across the back when he disembarks at Folkestone. The police become suspicious and arrest him before he can rejoin his accomplices.

Pierce is put on trial for the robbery. While exiting the courthouse, he receives the adulation of the crowds, who consider him a folk hero for his daring act. In the commotion, a disguised Miriam kisses him, slipping a key to his handcuffs from her mouth to his. Agar is also present, disguised as a police van driver. Before he can be put into the wagon, Pierce frees himself and escapes with Agar, to the jubilation of the crowd and the chagrin of the police.

Pierce is ultimately captured and put on trial, but as he is led away from court, a riot breaks out and he escapes with the help of his accomplices.

The film concludes with Pierce evading justice, reinforcing the caper’s playful tone and the allure of outsmarting Victorian authority. The ending cements Pierce’s status as both a criminal mastermind and an anti-establishment folk hero, while leaving the audience to ponder the blurred lines between cunning and criminality.