And here's twenty- eight - and sixty boys,
The rails are getting warm.
The fire box is stoking up,
As we head into the storm.
Old Twenty-eight's a mighty train
And rides a mighty line,
But she's still got several grades to face
On the way to Twenty Nine.

The pressure in the boiler's high
And the driver's in his cups.
The sky ahead is thick with rain,
And the wind is picking up.
But on the wheels, and on the rods,
And on the burnished line!
The MOAB crew has a job to do,
Gettin' to Twenty-Nine.

And the folks know we will do it, why,
They know it sure as shootin'.
They stand with all their children by,
And cheer the driver's tootin'
And wave until the last car's gone,
Over the hills of Time,
Into the mists of the gathering storm,
On the way to Twenty Nine.

We was up to eight and sixty-five,
A-strainin' up the grade,
And damn if any knew the road,
And them as knew, ain't said.
But we poured it on, and sweated it out,
As the mountains fell behind,
And we headed on toward the top o' thuh world,
On the way to Twenty-Nine.

Along come 20-8-six-six
And the load was lugging hard;
The engineer was cussing mad,
An' the fireman, he was tahred.
The load was slow, the grade was steep,
And the rods got outta line,
Hauling that train up into the sky,
On the way to Twenty-Nine.

Jacob Pandamus Groper
Songs of a Prairie Hopeless
Paynin, Meoirich, & Butte, Dublin, 1954