For those who have not heard Steam Shuttle, there are 2 recordings available on Youtube. The better one imo is their rendition of Duke Tritton's 'Sandy Hollow Line'. They noted that they put it to a traditional tune that Tritton had used for another of his songs, 'The Great Northern Line', 'in preference to the usual dreary melody'. Amen to that!

THE SANDY HOLLOW LINE
(Duke Tritton)

The sun was blazing in the sky and waves of shimmering heat
Glared down on the railway cutting, we were half dead on our feet
And the ganger stood on the bank of the cut and he snarled at the men below
"You'd better keep them shovels full or all you cows 'll go."

"I never saw such a useless mob, you'd make a feller sick
As shovel men you're hopeless, and you're no good with the pick"
There were men in the gang who could belt him with a hand tied at the back
But he had power behind him and we dare not risk the sack.

So we took his insults in silence, for this was the period when
We lived in the great depression and nothing was cheaper than men
And we drove the shovels and swung the picks and cursed the choking dust
We'd wives and hungry kids to feed so toil in the heat we must

And as the sun rose higher and the heat grew more intense
The flies were in their millions, the air was thick and dense
We found it very hard to breathe, our lungs were hot and tight
With the stink of sweating horses and the fumes of gelignite

But still the ganger drove us on, we couldn't take much more
We prayed for the day we'd get the chance to even up the score
A man collapsed in the heat and dust, he was carried away to the side
It didn't seem to matter if the poor chap lived or died

"He's only a loafer," the ganger said. "A lazy, useless cow
I was going to sack him anyway, he's saved me the trouble now"
He had no thoughts of the hungry kids, no thought of a woman's tears,
As she struggled and fought to feed her brood all down the weary years

But one of the government horses fell and died there in the dray
They hitched two horses to him and they dragged the corpse away
The ganger was a worried man and he said with a heavy sigh
"It is a bloody terrible thing to see a good horse die"

"You chaps get back now to your work and don't stand loafing ther
Get in and trim the batter down, I'll get the engineer"
Well the engineer he looked around and he said as he scratched his head
"No horse could work in this dreadful heat or all of them will be dead"

"They're much too valuable to lose, they cost us quite a lot
And I think it is a wicked shame to work them while it's hot
So we will take them to the creek and spell them in the shade
You men must all knock off at once - of course you'll not be paid"

And so we plodded to our camps and it seemed to our weary brains
We were no better than convicts, though we didn't wear the chains
And in those drear depression days, we were unwanted men
But we knew that when a war broke out, we'd all be heroes then

And we'd be handed a rifle and forced to fight for the swine
Who tortured us and starved us, on the Sandy Hollow Line

Youtube clip

--Stewie.