The story is loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, in which a cracksman called William Pierce (named Edward Pierce in Crichton's book and film) engineered the theft of a train-load of gold being shipped to the British Army during the Crimean War. The plot was inspired by Kellow Chesney's 1970 book 'The Victorian Underworld' , which is a comprehensive examination into the more sordid aspects of Victorian society. The film's central theme, the robbery of the 'Crimean Gold' from a train, is closely based on Pierce's actual robbery of £12,000 in gold coin and ingots from the London to Folkestone passenger train in 1855 by Pierce and his accomplices, a clerk in the railway offices called Tester, and a skilled screwsman called Agar. The robbery was a year in the planning and involved making sets of duplicate keys from wax impressions for the locks on the safes and bribing the train's guard, a man called Burgess

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