Train songs

[TheS.P.caboose]

Midnight Train To Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

[vlmuke]

you forgot Casey Jones by the Dead

Rich

[Railfan1]

How about the song by Razzy Bailey? Anyone ever heard that song? Can't think of the name.

[Railfan1]

Have any of you guys ever heard of Jimmie Rogers? The Blue Yodeler?

Yes actually.

[penncentral2002]

How about "Driver 8" by R.E.M. whose video was filmed at the Chessie System Clifton Forge, VA Yard?  Nice views of Chessie locomotives in that video.

Wilco has a song titled "Dash 9" which is pretty good.

Pat Boone's version of "Crazy Train" is hilarious.  Also hilarious is a song by The Red Krayola entitled "People Get Ready, the Train is Not Coming" (obviously the title is based on the great Impressions number "People Get Ready").  Just last year "People Get Ready" was sampled by a rap group called Code Red for a song called "All Aboard" which may be the only train rap songs I have ever heard (and its pretty good).

Thin White Rope's live version of "The Wreck of the Old '97" is another good more recent train number - the early country stable actually makes a good proto-grunge song.

Its not a song, but George Clinton always used to call Grand Funk Railroad "Grand Fraud Railroad" in the liner notes of Funkadelic albums - that always cracks me up.

[videomaker]

Spokeyone, Your right , I dont know how old any of you guys/girls are on here so I just have to ask..But JR was the singin breakman I think I heard somewhere long ago he did work the L&N or one of its subs..Danny

[spokyone]

Jimmie Rogers
My father called him the singing brakeman. "Blue yodel #9". In it he sings, "T for Texas, T for Tennessee.  And "waiting for a train". I believe he is in "country hall of fame" in Nashville.

[videomaker]

Have any of you guys ever heard of Jimmie Rogers? The Blue Yodeler? He was the first singin hobo ! Wrote many many songs about the railroad..Also Stonewall Jackson did a song called Smoke Along the Track..Danny

[NightrainAFD1987]

Train Kept A Rollin' -the Yardbirds version and the Aerosmith version

  

[ottergoose]

"Memphis Train" by Rufus Thomas, and later covered by Buddy Miles, are both excellent songs, especially if you like funky music with lots of horns.

[Railfan1]

My vote is for the "City of New Orleans" as well.

[M636C]

The movie "Harvey Girls" with Judy Garland was run by Turner Classic Movies recently.

About the first quarter of the movie is taken up by a sequence of the Santa Fe train (actually a Virginia and Truckee train, with red cars at the beginning of the shot and yellow cars at the end) arriving and departing the town. The song "Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe" runs through most of this with an amazing production scene as about half the cast march about eight abreast alongside the departing train which slowly outpaces them while the final lines of the song are sung. Doing all that with three film Technicolor must have been difficult, and even though some close ups are clearly on a full size mock up train, the departure was a real train, even if it was in a Hollywood back lot!

M636C

[Anonymous]

"Pan-american" and "that lonesome whistle" by Hank Williams Sr.
"fireball mail" and "wabash cannonball" by Roy Acuff
"Trains make me lonesome" by George Strait

[GP-9_Man11786]

"Love Train," By the OJ's; go ahead and laugh. There's also "Take the A-Train."

[trainfan1221]

Here's where I become unpopular around here, but here goes...My favorite two things in the world are music and trains.  And.. I HATE Train songs!  I just can't stand them.  With a few exceptions of modern rock such as "Runaway Train" or Neil Young's "Southern Pacific" which is a few years older, I honestly don't like traditional train songs at all.  My friend used to play them when we went on our trips and I just couldn't wait til they were over.   Sorry, just my opinion but that IS my opinion.  Thankfully you don't have to like the nusic to be a train fanatic.

[spe3376]

A couple of my favorites are by the Kingston Trio:

Buddy Better Get On Down The Line
Fast Freight
Golden Spike

[wjstix]

There was something on TV about a historian believing he found the historical "John Henry". Apparently at that time railroads would contract with the state to have prisoners come and work in track gangs and he was one of them. I guess the key to the mystery was the line in the song about taking him to the "White House" when he died to bury him. Why take him to Washington DC?? Well it turns out that "The White House" was what local people (and the prisoners) called the prison he was in, which at the time was painted all white...or made from white stone??

BTW it was the composer, Johnny Mercer, who sang the hit version of "On the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe", though I suppose Der Bingle may have recorded it later too.

[locomutt]

Well,I see that this topic is still "On Track" even after being Re,Re,Rehashed!

I'm still voting for "The City Of New Orleans" sung by Arlo Guthrie,John Denver
& Willie Nelson.(in that order)

One of my favorite CDs/Albums is John Denver's "All Aboard!"

[spokyone]

I have always liked "John Henry" as recorded by at least 100 artists.

[KCSfan]

Hi J.S. Green

The Wabash main line stretched from Buffalo to Detroit to St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha and DesMoines. It crossed the Chicago to St. Louis main at Decatur where their shops were located. Another line ran from St. Louis to Kansas City and the Wabash competed head to head with the MoPac for both passenger and freight traffic between those two cities. You can find a detailed map of the Wabash routes on the Wabash RR Historical Society web site. Incidentally the background music at that site is a 5-string banjo rendition of the Wabash Cannonball.

The Cannonball was actually their crack overnight train on the Detroit-St. Louis run. The Bluebird, Banner Blue and Midnight ran between Chicago and St. Louis in competition with the Illinois Central, Alton (GM&O) and C&EI trains. The City of St.Louis was a joint Wabash and Union Pacific streamliner to California. The Wabash handled it between St. Louis and Omaha and the UP from there to California. The Wabash also owned the Ann Arbor giving it access to points well up into Michigan. The Wabash was a far larger railroad than many people realize. It was noted not only for its excellent passenger trains but also for its 60mph manifest freights in an era when most other railroads freight trains seldom exceeded 30mph.

Mark

[nobullchitbids]

"Over the mountains, and over the plain,

Into the muskeg, and into the rain.

Up the St. Lawrence, all the way to Gaspe,

Swinging our hammers, and drawing our pay.

A dollar a day, and a place for our heads;

a drink to the living, a toast to the dead!

 

"Oh, the song of the future has been sung.

All the battles have been won.

On the mountaintops we stand,

All the world at our command:

We have opened up the soil,

With our teardrops and our toil."

 

In the days when the trains were made of wood and the men were made of iron, that was railroading!

[bill e]

Yeah, "Heart of Gold" does have a railroady feel to it.

My favorite probably is Victoria Williams "Demise of the Caboose."  I don't think

it received much airplay.  But it's obvious that she digs the whole bygone caboose

romanticism deal...

Bill E.

[JSGreen]

The Kansas State version is pretty catchy, but I am not sure what the tie-in is to the Wabash.  Did it go to KC?

You're right, the drum emphasis is pretty cool...

Wonder if Purdue know about this....but then again the way they have been playing, it would have to be re-written to be "Wabash Minnie-ball..."

[KCSfan]

My favorite is The Wabash Cannonball. Vocals sung by Roy Acuff can be heard at www.shurls.com/WabashCannonball.htm

The Kansas State Univ, Marching Band plays an instrumental version at all athletic events. I particularly like the drum simulation of the sound of the trains wheels clattering across a diamond. www.netheaduniversity.com/sounds/KansasStateUWabash_Cannonball_(1996_KSUMB).mp3

Mark

[e_m_frimbo]

My two favorites are  Midnight Special  and  Rock Island Line, sung by Leadbelly.

Jerry
Rome, Italy / Hammond, IN

[dave5000]

my favorite is:
"Long Train Runnin'" by The Doobie Brothers.

[wccobb]

Some of the eariler songs have been published in "Singing Rails" by Wayne Erbsen (Native Ground Music,Inc., 1997). 

Great Poems from RAILROAD MAGAZINE (Wayner Publications,1968) contains many that were set to music. 

Of all of these, I kinda favor "Life's Railway to Heaven" by M. E. Abbey & Charles D. Tillman, but not so much as to ignore the others. Most are from the days before air brakes and they portray a rather different time.

[Joliet Dave]

1.Choo Choo Ch'Boogie- Louis Jordan & The Tympany Five ( The original!)

2.She Caught The Katy-The Blues Brothers

3.C&A Blues-Big Bill Broonzy

Joliet Dave

 

[joesap1]

I agree with SFbrkm that Johnny Cash's Rock Island Line is one of the best. Those last lines are great:

              "The engineer said before he died there were two more drinks that he'd like to try.

                The conductor said what could they be?

                 A hot cup of coffee and a cold glass of tea.

 

                  "Well, the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,

                     The Rock Island Line is the road to ride,

                     The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,

                     And if you ride it, you got to ride it like your find it,

                     Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line."

 

                

[CANADIANPACIFIC2816]

Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Steel Rail Blues, The Watchman's Gone, all written by Gordon Lightfoot.

CANADIANPACIFIC2816

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"There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run, when the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun, long before the white man, and long before the wheel, when the green, dark forest was too silent to be real." Gordon Lightfoot