Ah yes! Hank Williams' Pan American. I'd learned that song well before I'd heard Roy Acuff singing Wabash Cannonball and I thought "wait just a minute......a train song with a VERY similar melody.....who's ripping off who?" But now I've figured Hank was probably making an answer-song to the Wabash Cannonball (as hinted in the first line of Pan-American: "I have heard your stories about your fast trains...").

One more question though..

In Acuff's version, is he talking about the train, or an actual girl, in the second verse?

-Elliot