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REQUIEM (Dave Goulder) When the signals were green, did you sit by line And watch for the fire in the sky? Then a scream and a roar and the shivering ground And old Oliver Cromwell goes by Did you fancy your hand at the throttle and brake With the steam driven into your soul? Or to stand with the drivin' wheels under your feet And shovel a mountain of coal? Well, they've silenced the whistle, the coal is all burned They've buried the ashes for good They've torn up the loop and there's only a scar To show where the water crane stood But the birch and the elder still follow the track Standing black in the smoke and the rain And the poor little sheep with a smouldering back Runs away at the sound of a train Oh Britannias and Jubilees, Compounds and Crabs Have been taken away from the shed And along with the clipper, the coach and the cab They speak of an age that is dead For some are away to be mounted and stuffed While others are butchered and sold And the steam racer's gone for the very last time And his brazier's broken and cold Well, I've given me kettle and me old tin can To a lad for a souvenir And I'd trade in me shovel for twenty fags Or the price of a bottle of beer For the Scotsman has come to the end of his run And Mallard is cold as the stone Their story is over, the giants are dead And the jackals are pickin' the bones Source: 'From the album Dave Goulder and Liz Dyer 'January Man'. Britannias were post-war 4-6-2 express engines, built by the nationalised British Railways. Oliver Cromwell was one of the Britannia class Jubilees were 4-6-0s, introduced in the mid-1930s by the LMSR Compounds probably means the 4-4-0 Midland Railway compounds (pre WW1) Crabs were powerful (for UK) 2-6-0 mixed traffic locos introduced about 1930 on the LMSR Mallard was a streamlined A4 Pacific (4-6-2) of the LNER @train @railroad filename[ REQUIEM PS VH Oct00 |
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