A timeless classic from Johnny Cash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG0fS4DoGUc
Orange Blossom Special.........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhs5j7HN8wM
This guy is pretty good with just the harmonica.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV4YJwRStKI
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
For many years, author Studs Terkel hosted a radio show on Saturday nights in Chicago called The Midnight Special featuring the song as sung by Leadbelly.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Excerpt from Working by Studs Terkel (1972)
https://books.google.com/books?id=7M6dLngSY2gC&pg=PR29&dq=%22bill+norworth%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj31bbHy-nVAhXE64MKHeDtAAcQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=%22bill%20norworth%22&f=false
[Bill Norworth, retired C&NW engineer]
A diesel's a lot easier than steam. It's a lot better job. Diesels can handle more cars, more tonnage. Diesel'll pull anything. They move, they can run. They don't take the know-how that you had to have with a steam engine. Steam engine was more of a challenge. Those men weren't well educated but still had the know-how. They could get more out of an engine than a man that had a college degree. It was all pride. When they got the diesel and got rid of the firemen, they had to make 'em engineers overnight almost. They're savin' themselves a penny, but it cost 'em, in my imagination, a dollar afterwards. 'Cause they've got men now goin' over the road that never even worked as a fireman on that territory, that hardly spent any time on the road. Most of the diesel work, it's electrical. If it breaks down, they can't fix it. You've gotta send for somebody. In the old days with a steam engine, why, it was up to you to get that engine in. If something you could see was wrong, why, you could do all the repairs yourself or put grease or oil or what was needed to bring it in. With the diesel, you got your throttle and a brake, same as an automobile. I think it's easier than driving an automobile. You're on rails. On an automobile you gotta watch curves and all that. That's truthful. Diesel's very clean. In the old days, with the steam engine, you had steam leaks and all that. And in the wintertime there was times you could almost go over the road and barely see any crossings, with the steam leaking around the cylinders. Diesel, you could sit in a business suit. Same as this room. It's almost soundproof. With a diesel, all you are is like a bump on a log up there up front.
Well, first of course I have to post a link to REM's 'Driver 8'.Then Berlin's MetroFinally, in regards to the post above concerning Stud Terkel and Diesel is clean, there were at least 2 popular songs around that era with a passing mention of dieselsCream's 1968 "White Room"
You said no strings could secure you at the stationPlatform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windowsI walked into such a sad time at the station
Get about as oiled as a diesel train
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/75484145
RIP Tom Petty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mns9VeRguys
Jason Aldean- Night Train
I think this one might have made it onto the charts at one time - someone put together a video to it which is pretty good, but not as good as the one I remember seeing when the kids were watching Captain Kangaroo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3tlCqqg7lw
In fact, I can't find the one from the show (which featured UP steam), but this video is all steam!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJpgn7fVGY
Speaking of the Captain - how many know that the theme for his show was actually about a train? I give you "Puffing Billy":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csorirBIWgw
The song was heard daily, of course, in living rooms across the land.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe - Johnny Mercer
Five Little Miles to San Berdoo by the two and only Jane Russell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiAXpxwWiOs
"Last Train to Clarksville" by the Monkees. Don't know the title, but there was a country song with a line that went "I'd rather be in a pine box on a slow train back to Georgia."
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/fats-domino-full-episode/6753/
goldspike 1 The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe - Johnny Mercer
One of the greatest lyricists among the Great American Songbook crowd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rva7-DEyQ9A
If he can use Paul Whiteman, then I can use this
Swingabella also has a good version of this, and perhaps unsurprisingly Manhattan Transfer has a version done ‘their way’...
Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railroad Trilogy.
zardoz Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railroad Trilogy.
+1
Pierre Berton once said to Lightfoot: "You know, Gord, you said as much in that song as I said in my book", referring to his 1000+ pages of The National Dream and The Last Spike.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Not specifically what is defined as "popular music," but still very popular with many railfans and professionals is the bulk of J .S. Bach's organ music.
It is now free! All of it. Go to
smdt.umich.edu/bachorgan
and donwload and then enjoy, any time.
James Kibbie on historic German organs
Soul Asylum, Runaway Train:
Joe Bataan, Subway Joe:
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
"Mother's Lying in a Box in the Baggage Coach Ahead" (no recording available). Also, "Hey Engineer, is this Train Goin' South" (novelty piece about New Jersey - several dixieland band recordings).
There's also the "Great Crush Collision March", a novelty piece (without words) wrriten to "commemorate" the staged train wreck arranged by William Crush, General Passenger Agent of the MKT, which ended up killing a number of people when the boilers of the colliding trains exploded. The reason this piece of of some note is that is is one of the earliest published works of Scott Joplin, the famous ragtime composer. The sheet music version is not a rag, but it was undoubtedly played as a rag.
Rock Island Line:
Asleep at the Wheel has a great version of Choo Choo Ch'Boogie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZM3_noPyiU
Take the A Train
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