The Muster- Tom O'Brien: The Great Train Robbery!

Our Garston correpondent looks at a classic Kiwi ad that was re-created recently at Fairlight!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome back to the muster on Hockinnui. That music they're
a synonymous of only one thing. It is the great
crunchy train robbery of course, that occurred on the Kingsdom
Flyer back in the I think it might have been
the late seventies or possibly the early eighties. Thomas O'Brien
Good afternoon, No, you know a bit more about this,
Good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Andy whole long journey bar wrote, you old out with
folks up and then you the way to make him stuff.
Enjoy your crunchy full of chap.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
That's one of the great ads.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Great. I was just thinking along to that then I
remember all the words, so I can't believe it. Yeah, yeah, fantastic.
It was a fun add that one.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah. So what happened at the weekend exactly tell us
about this because this is recreated.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah. So the Birchwood Hunt Club, which is basically an
organization which is made up of a whole lot of
people who are into horse tracks, doing lots of horse
tricks around the countryside. Yeah, they gathered on Sunday. There
was eighty horses and their riders and we bought the

(01:30):
Kingston Flyer into fear Light or about two hundred meters
before we got into fear light. Riders would ride for
abreast approaching the train, and as they got closer, we
to our horror. We realized that we were going to
get robbed. So they held us up the gunpoint. We
brought the train to a stop. There was stockworks cracking

(01:53):
and women guns going off, and yeah, they rode up
to the side of the carriages and they just went
onto the carriages and we started stealing everyone's you know,
jewelry and money and go. One of them he even
had a mobile f poss machine. They said, we'll get
it out of your somehow. So they were tying people
to the side of the blooming gates. And yeah, it

(02:16):
was a real ruckers. It was a real whoha going on.
So yeah, but a bit of excitement got the old
got the old heart racing mate.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So how long did this go on for?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Oh? Probably, I don't know. He's sort of thirty or
forty minutes. Of course, you know, the big ring leader
of the group, George Bought and he I could tell
it was some even though he was a masked he
was a masked robber. As soon as I saw him,
I was hiding in the bushes, you see. And I
jumped out and he said, I know you, I know you,
and I said I know you, and you're not going

(02:47):
to get me. So you sort of chased me around
the side of the local with women blunderbus and yeah,
and then we jumped up, jumped up on the engine
and yeah, yeah, I had a grand old time. So yeah, no, George,
he was leading the charge so to speak, with the
group with the Birch would hunt group, and yeah, we
had loads of fun. There was a real sort of
mutual kind of respect for all things vintage and you know,

(03:11):
sort of pioneering. Really. It's great.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
You hear about the lot overseas recreating battles and the
way they fought, but likes to do in the train robbery.
You can only even do that with the Kingsdom Flyer.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, that's right, and we used to do it on
a regular basis years ago. You know. We used to
have a few of the local guys would it'd be
sort of half a dozen of them and we'd slow
the train right down. But back in those days we
actually didn't stop the train and keep the train going.
And the guys a couple of the skilled guys whose
horses got used to actually doing this would be riding

(03:44):
next to the old first class bird cage carriage and
they'd jump out of their saddle onto the saddle and
then actually literally jump onto the train while it was
cruising along, and then and then hold everyone up. But
of course holding everyone up meant going through the through
the carriages with a with a chest full of country
bars and handing them out to the passengers. So yeah,

(04:05):
I'd love to rec It'd be awesome to be able
to actually do that on a regular basis again, because
I think people nowadays would really, really really cherish it
and love it, and young and old would get a
real buzz out of that.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
We catch you this afternoon at the top of Welcome Rock.
Describe what you're seeing at the moment. With some pretty
good views, i'd imagine Mat, I'm.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Looking straight out towards the knock of iy have the
magnificent knock on eye Bellley out towards the Garby Mountains.
I can see my old friend East Dome, I can
see my old friend mid Dome, and I can see
my old friend West Dome out towards the Takatimos and
the air mountains. I'm just heading over the other side

(04:44):
of the farm down to what's called the mud Hut
to drop some bags off for some people. And yeah,
the slate Hut and the mud Hut, they're pretty busy
at the moment and getting lots of bookings and year
down at the farm, we're getting pretty busy as well.
So yeah, go between sort of the train runs and
welcome rock and also counsel. You know, we've got a

(05:05):
council meeting tomorrow as well. Yes, yeah, it's kind of
the bermod Or Triangle of madness for tom really.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yes, what was it looking like out there grass wise?
You guys having an ok season?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Good? Yeah, good, good good. No, things have come pretty
well now, Like yeah, with a shells talking to the
old mate Skippy Chris McNamee last night. We had a
quiet beer on the porch last night. We could have
been bloody whittling stick with our pocket knives, you know,
in our rocking chairs, and we were sitting there and
we were just commenting, how good you know, the amount
of grass growth that's happened just this past week. You know,

(05:38):
we had that nice bit of rain, but yeah, having
the heat now, you know, getting that heat is really
crucial to just give that, you know, just to sort
of bulk everything up a little bit. But yeah, no,
it's yeah, it's good. Things are looking much better than
what they were a month ago, that's sure.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Absolutely Tom. I will leave it there, mate, thanks for
your time and we'll have a bit of a crunchy
head to see.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Shall we No, but let's go for it. Great heh.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Come on, Thomas O'Brien based up at Gaston This is
the master Rap. Next we'll cat chat with Emma Bloom.