A bearded old man approaches trivia expert Wilson Casey at a performance, asking if he knows who the last moving train robber was. He tells Wilson his name is Luman Ramsdell and, in 1949, he was the last train robber. He shows Wilson newspaper clippings and proceeds to tell him his story. In spite of the best efforts of his widowed mother, Luman grows into an incorrigible Youngstown, Ohio youth. As a teen, he forms a small gang that robs grocery stores and steals cars.When he’s arrested and awaiting trial in jail, he’s befriended by a local crime kingpin, who suggests Luman look him up when he gets out. At Luman’s bench trial, the public defender persuades the judge to offer an ultimatum: Luman either joins the military to fight the Germans or Japanese, or goes to prison. Luman enlists. While on a patrol mission in the Pacific, Luman is wounded and receives a Purple Heart. After his discharge, the VA finds him a job in a department store, where he meets the young woman he later marries. Bored with his job, Luman sets up a meeting in a local bar with the crime kingpin. The kingpin shows up while Luman is having a beer with Duke Ashton, an out-of-work, ex-G.I. high school acquaintance, and offers them work in Florida, betting on fixed horse races. He provides them with cash and a jockey contact who’ll tell them where to place their bets. The jockey double-crosses them and steals their money, leaving Luman and Duke with little more than the cash they have in their pockets. They decide to take a train, the B&O Ambassador, back to Ohio, and buy some fancy zoot suits for the ride home. Luman and Duke party in the club car with other passengers, and are soon drunk. The bartender asks them to settle up their bill before ordering more. Incensed, Luman replies that they have money in their suitcases in the baggage car. The bartender sends a porter with them to retrieve the cash. Luman’s anger grows when the porter drops his suitcase. It opens and spills out cash and weapons. Luman and Duke grab their guns and Luman decides to rob the train. He orders the porter to signal the train to stop. Duke and Luman work their way through the train, mugging and robbing passengers. A dining car chef is accidentally shot by Luman, as Luman makes his way to the club car to pay his bill. In the club car, Luman locates the engineer and drags him to the engine car, where he forces the engineer to back up the train to a place where he saw lights—and where he intends to get off with Duke and their loot. The lights are from a local tavern. Luman and Duke enter to get keys from a patron and steal a car for their getaway. The first car they grab runs out of gas a short distance away, so they return to the bar and steal another. After passing a batch of police vehicles heading toward the bar, Luman thinks it best to abandon the car and proceed on foot. They hide their loot and walk to a small bus station to buy tickets. In the station grill, a suspicious deputy questions them and spots Luman’s gun under his suit coat. Luman feels it’s now too risky to wait for the bus, so he and Duke set off on foot again and eventually flag down a bus. Now sober, Luman decides they should head for Washington, D.C., buy some new clothes and meet President Truman, who might give them a break because of their military service during the war. The Washington police have been notified that the train robbers are on their way to the city. When they stop at a pawn shop to buy clothes, two policemen confront them. During the altercation, Luman is shot and seriously wounded. He’s given less than a fifty-fifty chance for survival. He does recover and he and Duke are sentenced to twenty years in prison. They’re both paroled after six. Luman becomes a fine artist, a skill he developed in prison, and lives a relatively quiet life in Spartanburg, SC. Duke moves to Hawaii, where he sells clothing and gives dance lessons.
