Anyone give me a line on "Finnigan"?

[frankjur]

I'm searching for some sources for a story or poem about a railroad wreck crane foreman from the turn of the last century named Finnigan. The gist of it is that every time he'd finish a wreck job he'd write elaborate reports about the wreck recovery. His Superintendent complained to him about the length of his reports and wanted him to make them briefer. Finally getting fed up with this demand, Finnigan after the most recent wreck--a derailed locomotive--wrote:

Engine 1290
Off again
On again
Back again
Finnigan

Now the only references Google showed was a cartoon from a 1925 Frisco employees' magazine. I also recall reading the story in "Railroad" magazine back in the 70's (...with a girlie picture in every issue, but that's another story). But I'm trying to find other, earlier--if not the original--sources for this story. Can anyone out there help?

[wjstix]

IF memory serves, the C&NW Historical Society magazine had a good story on this about 10 years ago. I'm sure I still have the issue but am in the midst of packing for a move next month so can't find which issue - perhaps contact the society directly (link below)??

Anyway, it was based a true story. Finnegan was a station agent for the CNW (or Omaha Road subsidiary) in Wisconsin. As you say, he got kidded by someone about writing long and detailed reports when derailments or other problems came up. Being an educated man this bothered him. Later another derailment happened, and after the problem was resolved he had to report to HQ that the cars had come off the rails, were put back on the track successfully, and the train had continued on it's way.

His entire report was:

Off again. On again. Gone again. Finnegan. [:D]

Apparently the story got out, and eventually a writer out in California heard about it in a news story or somehting and wrote a poem based on the story for his column, basically claiming it had come to him in a moment of inspiration. The poem became quite famous, but the writer apparently never talked about it being a true story that he embellished.

I'm not sure how far back it actually took place (the incident the poem was based on), but the CNW Historical Soc. story had a picture of Finnegan as an older man still at work on the railroad during World War 2, so could have been around 1900 or so.

http://www.cnwhs.org/

[joseph2]

I have a copy of the poem,Finnigin's superintendent was named Flannigan.The name of the poem is "Finnigin to Flannigan."

[joseph2]

I found the poem,here is a link to it http://experts.about.com/q/Poetry-678/Childrens-poem-early-1900s.htm it's about halfway down the page .I read this is the most popular railroad poem ever.Oops,that link doesn't work.Type poem Finnigin to Flannigan into the Yahoo browser and look at the first response.