节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-08-08
难易度:Medium
关键字:halt, unhook, goods, getaway, fireman
Well, 50 years ago to the day, the Great Train Robbery occurred.
We're talking about that today.
And we're enjoying an interesting story that started at 3 a.m. in 1963 on August
8.
And they were boarding a train, these robbers got on the Night Flyer, and they
were starting to rob this train.
So far we've talked about how they hit the driver over the head,
how they unhooked the engine and the first two cars from the rest of the train,
and the Night Flyer is rolling on.
Let's continue this story.
(Music).
The Great Train Robbery.
3:15 a.m.
It soon stopped at Bridego Bridge, where the thieves removed 120 mailbags from
the High Value Package car.
The driver and fireman were then tossed into the car with its five mail sorters
and were told not to move.
By 3:45, the thieves' mission was complete, and all 15 of them made off with
their goods without a trace.
A stolen total of about 2.6 million pounds (US$50 million today) earned the
crime its name - the Great Train Robbery.
But though the robbery was successful, there are no clean getaways....
Oh, I'm so excited to find out what happens next.
But before we can learn more about this story, we need to go back to the
beginning of this section.
It is now 3:15 a.m.
So this is just 15 minutes later.
We're talking about the Night Flyer.
It soon stopped at Bridego Bridge, where the thieves removed 120 mailbags from
the High Value Package car.
Now I usually don't think of mail being very valuable, but this is a very
special car on this train, isn't it, Gabe?
That's right, the High Value Package.
If something has high value, it's probably very expensive, so.
I don't know what's inside this mail, but there is a lot of expensive things
inside this mail.
So the thieves removed these 120 mailbags.
And the "thief" is another name for a robber.
You can kind of use these words in the same way.
That's right.
Well, continuing in the story.
The driver and fireman were then tossed into the car with its five mail sorters
and were told not to move.
So there were five mail sorters in this car already.
Then they took the fireman and the driver of the train, and put them all in the
same car in this High Value Package train car and told them not to move.
But they took all of the valuable bags out first.
I think so.
So these seven people are sitting in this car, they're not moving.
And we continue.
By 3:45, so just half an hour later, the thieves' mission was complete, and all
15 of them made off with their goods without a trace.
So just within 45 minutes, 15 robbers get away with these goods without a trace.
Wow.
Well, there are a lot of good phrases and words in this sentence.
The first one that I want to talk about is "make off with." So to make off with
something means to steal or to get away with something.
A lot of times we hear this phrase when talking about robberies.
You could say: Oh, the thief made off with the diamon necklace.
It was worth a lot of money, and he got away with it!
That's right.
When I was traveling in Greece with some friends, a robber... or a thief came
and made off with my friend's purse.
So she lost a lot of her money and some of her other important items.
The thief made off with this.
And of course these robbers on the Night Flyer, they made off with their goods
without a trace.
Let's take a look at that word from our Word Bank: goods.
Now what are goods, Carolyn?
Well, goods are things that are valuable, usually talking about things that you
can buy or sell.
But here they're talking about things that the robbers desired.
So the goods were the mailbags that I think were either filled with valuable
things or cash because they were carrying money to be deposited in a bank.
That's right. So that could be a kind of goods.
You might talk about imported goods - goods that come into your country.
Or exported goods, you're shipping them to another country for sale.
And they made off with these goods without a trace.
Now what does that mean, Carolyn?
Well, that is another very good phrase.
"Without a trace" means that you have no idea where they went.
You can't find them.
So they just disappeared.
That's right.
So a trace is kind of a path you can follow, something that gives you some kind
of direction or clue.
So if there is no trace, we don't know where to go to find them.
They made off without a trace.
There's some great English in that sentence, some good phrases that you can use.
All right.
So a stolen total of about 2.6 million pounds (US$50 million today) earned the
crime its name - the Great Train Robbery.
So Carolyn, why is there something in parentheses there?
Well, it's separate from the rest of this sentence because they didn't steal
US$50 million, they were stealing pounds.
So this is British money that they use in the United Kingdom in Great Britain.
And it's not the same as what it is today because 2.6 million pounds back then
is worth a lot more than 2.6 million pounds today.
That's right.
Maybe 2.6 million pounds today is only worth about US$5 million today, but back
then it was worth US$50 million.
It was equivalent to that amount today.
That's a lot of money they made off with on the Great Train Robbery.
But though the robbery was successful, there are no clean getaways....
Well, let's take a look at that word from our Word Bank: a getaway.
And a getaway is when some people, maybe who wanted to steal something or they
did something bad, they got away with something.
That means that nobody could find them.
They're... they're OK.
They're not going to get in trouble.
That's what happens when you get away with something.
That's right.
So they escaped.
The police didn't catch them.
But we see that there are no clean getaways, which means that maybe there was a
trace that was left,
some sort of clue that people could use to find them later.
That's right.
So there was some kind of a trace.
Now usually you would see this as a whole phrase.
There are no clean getaways.
It's just something that people believe.
It's true.
If someone wants to get away with something, usually there's some kind of a
trace.
Well, we hope that these robbers... actually, you'll find out in the rest of the
story what happened to these robbers.
It is an exciting story.
We'll learn more about that tomorrow and in the next lesson.
But for now, let's learn something with Michelle in the Language Lab.
(Chinese).
And let's return to our teachers now.
Today we've been learning about a very exciting event in history - the Great
Train Robbery.
And this is just a wonderfully written tale.
And I'm very curious to know what will happen next since there are no clean
getaways.
Gabe, what do you think will happen to these robbers?
Hmm, well, before I read the story, what I thought might happen to these robbers
was that they would maybe go travel somewhere.
They'd go to some other country and try to get away from the United Kingdom.
They just get away from that scene altogether and go live their lives with the
money or with the valuable things that they got from the Great Train Robbery.
Um, that's not what happens.
But what do you think would happen, or what did you think would happen, Carolyn?
Well, just from reading today's lesson, I was a little bit nervous because we do
see that there are no clean getaways.
So I think something very bad might happen to these men.
But we will find out all about it tomorrow right here on Studio Classroom.
See you then.