Two men enter a train station in what is said to be a small rural town and immediately flash guns at the lady who runs the place and let her know that they intend to use the track switch to cause the crash of a train due to arrive in about an hour, as a means of robbing the train of $750,000. They figure in the confusion, they'll be able to take the money and get away and promise the lady, Betty, that she won't be hurt if she cooperates.
She tries to talk them out of it but even telling them about all the people on the train who will be killed has no impact-all they care about is the money. When the phone rings, she answers it and unknown to the robbers, tries to give a clue to her friend about how she doesn't want to miss going out for lunch. Her buddy knows she always brings a lunch with her and eats at her desk, but he doesn't figure out why she said that.
Later, the robbers spot Betty's paper sack lunch in an open drawer and while they don't know just what she's up to, they have her call the man back to tell him she doesn't need to go out, that she has her lunch.
None of these people know that Dan Mathews of the Highway Patrol is already on the case. He got involved simply because of worry about the huge shipment of money and was at the other train station with Betty's friend and heard her call. Dan's been working the phones trying to figure out what she was up to, from his location, about half an hour from Betty's station.
After she calls back and puts the robbers' minds at ease, she leaves open the table switch she uses as her microphone for the phone, allowing Mike to hear what is said later. Here is where she states clearly the facts about the planned robbery, putting our guy Dan into action-racing to get to the train station in time.
Dan and Sergeant Williams arrive at the station with moments to spare. But they are spotted by the bad guys, who have already pulled the switch to cause the train to derail. After some shooting, one of them does like the Germans always did in Combat-the TV series, not the actual war-and leaves the safety of the station, going out the door right into the line of fire. Guess what? He gets shot. This leaves his partner to take Betty as hostage as he goes out the door.
Dan calls his bluff, saying, "He won't kill you because then you'd be dead weight and he'd have no protection against us being shot." He talks Betty into just walking back inside and pulling the switch to save the train-which she does just in time for the train to rumble through safely. The other bad guy just gives up.
This show had some rare tension as we wondered how they were going to prevent the big train crash. Two-thirds of the way through, I was thinking this is one of their best episodes. But then it fell apart. We knew Dan and Co. Wouldn't get to the station more than a couple of minutes before the train, and apparently there was no other law enforcement agency closer than a half an hour's drive-which seems odd to me. You'd think a town with a train station would have at least an Andy & Barney police force. So when they got there, we knew there was no time for subterfuge. If the crooks had just stayed in the building and waited for the train, Dan wouldn't have had time to do anything unless he and Williams just stormed the station-likely getting them both killed since there were two crooks inside with guns who could hide behind tables or whatever and get the drop on them. Then the way the one crook just walked outside and the other gave up was simply not believable.
I also think it hard to believe in the late 50s that nobody at that other station could radio the train in question and have them stop. Allowing for that, what sort of train station in the mid-20th Century is operated fully by one woman? Even though this train was going through, she was there to-sell tickets, handle baggage, man the telephones, handle telegraph signals, and who knows what else?
From the pictures shown, that train switch was going to derail the train right into the station, which would likely have killed not only Betty but the two crooks if Dan hadn't arrived in time. The whole plot itself seems shaky-train goes off tracks, crashes onto its side and in the wreckage, these two crooks will be able to get into the car with the money and take it away without anyone stopping them. With smashed up train cars, it might have been impossible for them to get into that car. If the money was in small bills, it would be more than a couple of handfuls of bags, so their plans to carry it all away might have required a couple of trips from the train to their auto and back.
Another dumb thing: They certainly had reason to arrive in town early, but knowing the train wasn't due for over an hour, I ask, "Why did they need to show themselves to Betty and effectively, hold her hostage a full hours before they wanted to strike. They could have gone to a nearby diner, or parked on the roadside half a mile outside town, or done other inconspicuous things until about 10 minutes before they struck, then gone into the station and done their thing. No reason to hold her hostage all that time-she wasn't going anywhere.
With all these things, I had to lower my score from a 9 to a 4.
She tries to talk them out of it but even telling them about all the people on the train who will be killed has no impact-all they care about is the money. When the phone rings, she answers it and unknown to the robbers, tries to give a clue to her friend about how she doesn't want to miss going out for lunch. Her buddy knows she always brings a lunch with her and eats at her desk, but he doesn't figure out why she said that.
Later, the robbers spot Betty's paper sack lunch in an open drawer and while they don't know just what she's up to, they have her call the man back to tell him she doesn't need to go out, that she has her lunch.
None of these people know that Dan Mathews of the Highway Patrol is already on the case. He got involved simply because of worry about the huge shipment of money and was at the other train station with Betty's friend and heard her call. Dan's been working the phones trying to figure out what she was up to, from his location, about half an hour from Betty's station.
After she calls back and puts the robbers' minds at ease, she leaves open the table switch she uses as her microphone for the phone, allowing Mike to hear what is said later. Here is where she states clearly the facts about the planned robbery, putting our guy Dan into action-racing to get to the train station in time.
Dan and Sergeant Williams arrive at the station with moments to spare. But they are spotted by the bad guys, who have already pulled the switch to cause the train to derail. After some shooting, one of them does like the Germans always did in Combat-the TV series, not the actual war-and leaves the safety of the station, going out the door right into the line of fire. Guess what? He gets shot. This leaves his partner to take Betty as hostage as he goes out the door.
Dan calls his bluff, saying, "He won't kill you because then you'd be dead weight and he'd have no protection against us being shot." He talks Betty into just walking back inside and pulling the switch to save the train-which she does just in time for the train to rumble through safely. The other bad guy just gives up.
This show had some rare tension as we wondered how they were going to prevent the big train crash. Two-thirds of the way through, I was thinking this is one of their best episodes. But then it fell apart. We knew Dan and Co. Wouldn't get to the station more than a couple of minutes before the train, and apparently there was no other law enforcement agency closer than a half an hour's drive-which seems odd to me. You'd think a town with a train station would have at least an Andy & Barney police force. So when they got there, we knew there was no time for subterfuge. If the crooks had just stayed in the building and waited for the train, Dan wouldn't have had time to do anything unless he and Williams just stormed the station-likely getting them both killed since there were two crooks inside with guns who could hide behind tables or whatever and get the drop on them. Then the way the one crook just walked outside and the other gave up was simply not believable.
I also think it hard to believe in the late 50s that nobody at that other station could radio the train in question and have them stop. Allowing for that, what sort of train station in the mid-20th Century is operated fully by one woman? Even though this train was going through, she was there to-sell tickets, handle baggage, man the telephones, handle telegraph signals, and who knows what else?
From the pictures shown, that train switch was going to derail the train right into the station, which would likely have killed not only Betty but the two crooks if Dan hadn't arrived in time. The whole plot itself seems shaky-train goes off tracks, crashes onto its side and in the wreckage, these two crooks will be able to get into the car with the money and take it away without anyone stopping them. With smashed up train cars, it might have been impossible for them to get into that car. If the money was in small bills, it would be more than a couple of handfuls of bags, so their plans to carry it all away might have required a couple of trips from the train to their auto and back.
Another dumb thing: They certainly had reason to arrive in town early, but knowing the train wasn't due for over an hour, I ask, "Why did they need to show themselves to Betty and effectively, hold her hostage a full hours before they wanted to strike. They could have gone to a nearby diner, or parked on the roadside half a mile outside town, or done other inconspicuous things until about 10 minutes before they struck, then gone into the station and done their thing. No reason to hold her hostage all that time-she wasn't going anywhere.
With all these things, I had to lower my score from a 9 to a 4.
