Time for a bit of thread creep , track creep , mixed orders and mixed metaphors I think. Oh , and a bit of idle speculation.

Sorry if this sounds like I'm , ahem , derailing the thread with the reference to the other song . I was just wondering after reading the lyric to The Wreck of The Royal Palm whether the words"strict orders" in Engine 143 might have originally been "mixed orders" . It would seem to make sense.

I know that "strict orders" makes some sense as well , but not as much imo. The concept of "mixed orders " was obviously widely understood in Vernon Dalhart's time- enough that it could be used as a metaphor in railroad communities . "Mixed orders" gives sense to the whole Engine 143 crash song. I'll have to check up on 143 to see how it came to be written .