Magnificent thread! Since the original post solicited recent songs, how 'bout some help/comment/criticism
(pm or otherwise) (or maybe even a title?)
for a (c) work in progress?

Did 'ja hear my daddy was an engineer
Down the Eastern Seaboard Line
Smoke and steam and a Georgia Dream
And a baby got left behind
When he went through -- and the whistle blew

My momma she went to cookin' and we
Moved further down the track
In the smoke and damp of the labor camps
And we never did look back
'Til she was gone -- and I went on

Well, I headed west in the summer time
Gonna see if I could find my way
Through the B & O and the U.P.,
Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe
And the Burlington -- and the Erie Lackawana

When I'm laying awake at midnight
I hear the lonesome sound
One 'a these days it'll get in my ear
And I'm gonna blow this town
Go back out -- to where I been
   
      (or maybe alternatively??)

Laying awake at midnight
I can hear that lonesome song
You wake up alone some morning, baby
Then you'll know that I'll be gone
But won't you please think well of me

Now when I'm through my ramblin'
I wouldn't want anybody sad
Just tell all my good-time friends
It was a pleasure being had
But when I'm gone -- party on!

(call me old enough to remember the sound of a Santa Fe coal-burner steaming through town on a summer's night)