We had a great time with this song at an ecumenical Christmas concert about 25 years ago. It had a really powerful bass part for "the people keep a-comin' but the train done gone. I was trying to find a YouTube recording of that arrangement, but couldn't. In fact, most of the recordings I found didn't have the "people keep a-comin" line at all. It's a really fun line to sing, but I have to admit it doesn't make much sense. But it's a great song, with or without that line.