(1) Also posted HERE (lyrics--riding down from bangor).

(2) From Norm Cohen, Long Steel Rail (pp. 50-52):

The second romantic ballad referred to above, "The Harvard Student" (to use the title Vance Randolph gives it), is a lighter-hearted ditty about a bearded student and a blushing maiden who take adjacent seats on the railroad train "riding down from Bangor." When the train emerges from a long tunnel, one of the maiden's dainty earrings is tangled in the student's beard. Spaeth, remarking on the song's popularity during the 1890s, says that the correct title is "The Eastern Train" and that it was supposedly of Scots origin. It is often titled "Riding Down from Bangor" and credited to Louis Shreve Osborne. It was published in songsters of the 1880s as "On the Pullman Train." The earliest printing I have found is in an 1871 issue of the Harvard Advocate, where the song was titled "In the Tunnel" and credited to "S.O.L." These initials are puzzling inasmuch as they are, in incorrect order, Louis Shreve Osborne. There was a Louis S. Osborne at Harvard in 1871 who was a poet, but whether he was "S.O.L." I have not been able to determine. Nor do I know who was responsible for setting the text to music.

(3) The sheet music in the Levy Collection is (pages 1 & 4 wouldn't come up, though):

Title: The Popular College Song. Riding Down From Bangor.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Arranged by S.E. Farwell.
Publication: Boston: Oliver Ditson Company, 1881.
Form of Composition: strophic
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: Riding down from Bangor, On an eastern train

(4) Folk Music Index:

Riding Down from Bangor - Osborne, Louis Shreve
1. Marais and Miranda. Wine of Gaul, Decca DL 8791, LP (1959), cut#B.01
2. Marais and Miranda. Ballads of Many Lands, Decca DL 5268, LP (195?), cut#A.04

(5) The Traditional Ballad Index: Harvard Student, The (The Pullman Train):

Harvard Student, The (The Pullman Train)

DESCRIPTION: As the train pulls into a village, a girl gets on and openly sits next to the "tall and stout and swell" (Harvard student). He gets "soot" in his eye; she offers to remove it. They enter a tunnel, and after kissing sounds her earring is found in his beard
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1871 (Harvard Advocate)
KEYWORDS: courting train humorous
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 391, "The Harvard Student" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 218-320, "The Harvard Student" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 391)
Spaeth-ReadWeep, pp. 109-110, "The Eastern Train" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7617
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Pullman Train
In the Tunnel
Notes: According to Cohen, the 1871 printing in the Harvard Advocate is credited to "S. O. L." It was printed under the title "In the Tunnel." - RBW
File: R391

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