The Up Special Wasn’t So Special
There was nothing special about the Up Special train that was traveling from Glasgow. The Up Special was a 12-car, single diesel locomotive mobile post office used for postal employees to sort mail and packages from Glasgow, Scotland to London, England.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
The postal route was rather monotonous and uneventful, having done the same thing over and over, every night without incident for 125 years. That’s why there was nothing remarkable about that train… that is, until the night of August 8, 1963.