Actually, the song was recorded somewhere along the way by Hank Williams Jr, could be you're thinking of that version.

There is a much newer version on an album called Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal, but that's all material for some other thread.

My own experience with Rock Island Line was of course Lonnie when I was in my early years of college, Johnny Cash just a little later, and how could one forget Stan Freeberg's version?

When the song pops into my brain every now and then, it can be any one of the three. The older versions, sorry, I never "hear" those. Lonnie was definitely first in my memory. I didn't buy the song until many years later when I picked it up on an album by Lonnie on an imported Decca album. That was really my intro to his music.