Cohen, Norm, The Long Steel Rail, Chap. 3, "Railroad March" to "City of New Orleans," University Illinois, 1981, p 46.

"Another early courting song from the 1850s that appeared in several songsters and on broadsides was "Ridin' in a Rail Road Keer" (a broadside version is reproduced in this book):…

"Already by the 1840s the railroad was serving as an allegorical device in songs and poems….

"These early pieces have left no permanent mark on oral tradition. Whether they were at one time folksongs, we don't know; there is no evidence of it. It is probable that some of them, or similar pieces, did circulate in oral tradition for a time. In general, our knowledge of native American folksong prior to the Civil War is slender indeed…."

Sincerely,
Gargoyle