Well, Jon, lemme tell ya about my source for the song. I was hoping somebody would ask.
It's a songbook called "Singing Rails: Railroadin' Songs, Jokes, & Stories," by Wayne Erbsen, director of the Appalachian Music program at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. He also has a great bluegrass program on the public radio station in Asheville. I found one of his songbooks in a Park Service store on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and ended up buying all the books he has out. The best ones are this one and the 2 books on cowboys and outlaws, one called "Front Porch Old-time Songs, Jokes, and Stories," and one by Doug Elliott called "Crawdads, Doodlebugs, and Creasy Greens." They're available from Erbsen's Native Ground Music, (800)752-2656, and I think they cost about five or six bucks apiece. You can also get them from www.amazon.com by searching under "Erbsen." The songs in the books are very good, but the stories included with them are really great.

Gene, the words I put in parentheses are from Bruce "Utah" Phillips, but the rest are from Sara Carter Bayes. I don't know what he had to do with the writing of the song, but that's A. L. Phipps who is listed with Sara in the BMI directory, and A.L. and the Phipps family had some sort of association with the Carters.
Sara had been married to A.P. Carter. They got divorced, but still performed together. She married Coy Bayes in the late 1930's.
-Joe Offer-