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Canada's First Train Heist

  • Writer: Eve Morrison
    Eve Morrison
  • Jan 14
  • 4 min read
Audio cover
EM - Podcast Ep 1 - Canada's First Train HeistEve Morrison


Transcript:


You know, when people think of train robberies, they usually picture something dramatic. Masks. Guns. High stakes. A getaway into the night.


Canada… didn't quite do that.


Today I want to talk about one of my favourite pieces of Canadian crime history, because it’s strange, oddly charming, and—most importantly—not horrifying. No one dies. No one is seriously hurt. And the criminals, frankly, are not very good at their jobs.


This is the story of what’s often called Canada’s first train robbery. And it is spectacularly, almost lovingly, incompetent.


Let’s set the scene.


We’re in the early 1900s. Trains are everything. They’re how people move, how mail moves, how money moves. If you want to move anything valuable across the country, you put it on a train and hope for the best.


It’s May of 1906. The Canadian Pacific Railway’s transcontinental express is making a stop in British Columbia, at a remote little place called Duck’s Station. It’s not exactly a bustling metropolis. It’s forest, rail lines, and very little else.


And that’s where our main character enters the story.


His name was Bill Miner.


Bill Miner was already something of a legend by this point. He wasn’t Canadian—he was American—and he’d spent years robbing stagecoaches in the U.S. Back when stagecoaches were the thing to rob.


But times change. Technology moves on. And eventually, even criminals have to update their skill sets.


So Bill Miner did what any adaptable outlaw would do: he followed the money. Which meant trains.


He was older by then. White-haired. Calm. Polite, even. He developed a reputation as “The Gentleman Bandit,” which is one of those nicknames that sounds charming until you remember it still involves armed robbery.


But compared to other criminals of the era, he really was… restrained. No unnecessary violence. No panic. Just confidence and a plan.


Unfortunately for him, the plan was not very good.


Miner and two accomplices decided this train was their big score. They stopped it at Duck’s Station and uncoupled the engine and the mail car from the rest of the train.


So far, so good. This is the part where the heist music would swell in a movie.

Their target was the mail car safe. They assumed—very reasonably—that this is where the money would be.


Except… it wasn’t.


The safe they wanted was still attached to the passenger section of the train.


Which they had very carefully left behind.


At this point, they could have stopped.


Reassessed.


Gone home. (That would have been the sensible move.)


They did not do that.


Instead, they rifled through mail sacks.


They missed the one sack that actually contained money. Over forty thousand dollars, just sitting there, quietly minding its own business.


What they did find was fifteen dollars and fifty cents.


And a bottle of liver pills.


That’s it. That was the haul.


Canada’s first train robbery netted less than twenty dollars and some questionable early-20th-century medicine.


If this were fiction, you’d cut it for being too on-the-nose.


Naturally, the story doesn’t end there.


The robbery triggered a massive response. The authorities were not amused. This was still a big deal, even if the outcome was laughable. The Royal North-West Mounted Police got involved. Local police got involved.


Trackers.


Posses.


It became one of the largest manhunts Canada had seen up to that point.

Which is deeply funny when you remember they were chasing men who had, essentially, stolen lunch money and vitamins.


Miner and his accomplices did manage to evade capture for a time. He was good at disappearing into the wilderness. That part of his reputation was earned.

But eventually, they were caught. Miner was arrested, tried, and sentenced to prison.


And here’s where the story leans even harder into legend.


Bill Miner escaped prison. More than once.


Not because of violence or chaos—but because of patience, charm, and timing. He waited. He watched. He slipped away. Which only added to his myth. By this point, he was less a terrifying criminal and more a folk figure. A reminder that even crime history can have… personality.


And that’s really why this story sticks.


This wasn’t a tale of terror. It was a tale of human error. Of assumptions. Of plans that look very good right up until reality taps you on the shoulder and says, “No.”

It’s also a very Canadian story in its own quiet way.


No shootouts. No grandstanding. Just a remote place, a bad plan, and a bunch of people afterward saying, “Well. That didn’t go as expected.”


This is exactly the kind of story cozy mysteries thrive on.


Not because it’s funny—though it is—but because it’s human.


The criminals aren’t monsters. They’re flawed people making bad decisions. The tension comes from curiosity rather than fear. And the setting matters just as much as the crime itself.


This is the kind of history that reminds us crime doesn’t always have to be dark to be interesting. Sometimes it’s odd. Sometimes it’s anticlimactic. Sometimes it’s almost… endearing.


And honestly? Those are my favourite mysteries. The ones where the stakes are personal, not apocalyptic. Where cleverness matters more than brutality.


If you want to read more about Bill Miner and this robbery, I’ve put links in the show notes—from Library and Archives Canada and a few other great sources.


It’s well worth a rabbit hole.


Next week, we’re shifting gears a bit and talking about the craft of cozy mysteries—specifically, how to build an amateur sleuth readers actually want to spend time with.


Because as Bill Miner proved… not everyone needs to be a mastermind to make a story worth telling.


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