The robbery of the Central do Brasil pay train
Japeri, Rio de Janeiro, 1960
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
On the morning of June 14, 1960, around 8:30, the Central do Brasil Railway pay train was running along the auxiliary line carrying the wages of more than a thousand railwaymen, boosted that month by a bonus. At the so-called Curve of Death, at km 71, near Japeri station, a dynamite charge tore up the rails and derailed the locomotive and one car. The money was travelling in boxes and cans, outside the safe.
A masked gang, armed with submachine guns and revolvers, came down shooting, took about 27 million cruzeiros and fled in a pickup truck. A man travelling on the train died and others were wounded. For months the police had no lead, arrested hundreds of innocent people, and only reached the group, in the Mangueira hill neighborhood, through overheard conversations, one participant's flashy spending and tips. Part of the money turned up in the lining of a wardrobe, in the oven of a stove and buried in a backyard; most of it was never recovered.
Sources
In the game
The Payroll Cans
Japeri station, auxiliary line of the Central, Friday, June 1960. On Tuesday, at 8:30 a.m., an explosion tore up the rail on the curve at km 71. The locomotive and the pay car left the track and toppled down the embankment.
The case inspired the film O Assalto ao Trem Pagador (The Pay Train Robbery), by Roberto Farias, released in 1962. The game borrows the dynamited curve, the railwaymen's payroll train and the money travelling in cans outside the safe. Characters, investigation details and outcome are fiction.
