Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 26 May 26 - 10:37 AM

Casey Jones, as imagined by the Grateful Dead's lyricist Robert Hunter, didn't die during the song but his train was about to run head-on into another train in the last verse. Not surprisingly, for the Dead, he was operating under the influence.

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 May 26 - 10:22 AM

So, what in the USA, do they call Civil Engineers, Chemical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Hydraulic Engineers etc?
Robin

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 26 May 26 - 09:28 AM

Verily, Dave. There was an article on this prejudice in (I *think*) New Scientist in the mid-to-late 1960s. It was summed up by a cartoon of a chap offering a handshake to someone else and saying "Hello! I'm an engineer." Said hand was, of course, dripping with oil.

I think it's a class-based prejudice in the UK: His Lordship tended to lump anybody who did anything mechanical with the blacksmith and other servants and tradespeople. Mathematics was something altogether more cerebral, so it was a perfectly acceptable pursuit for a man of leisure; but any pastime or (*ghasp*) career which threatened to put smuts or oil-stains on one's lace cuffs was definitely frowned upon.

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: DaveRo
Date: 26 May 26 - 07:59 AM

The engineering profession, in the UK at least, has been fighting a losing battle for decades against the use of 'engineer' to mean "a machinist or machine operator" or a technician who fixes your telephone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Reinhard
Date: 26 May 26 - 04:26 AM

That's true for British English, Guest. The train driver in American English is called railroad engineer, or simpler just engineer.

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 26 - 09:25 PM

Love the We are the Engineers except this song is n English song. In English popular and especially working class parlance, and engineer does NOT mean someone who drives a railroad locomotive, but is more akin to a machinist or machine operator or what I was raised to call a worker in the "metal trades" or a machine shop.

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 11:38 AM

From Cowboy Fireman/His Trusty Lariat;

"My gosh" the hog head shouted
As he slammed on all the brakes
"I'll never stop this SP train
I ain't got what it takes"

They buried that poor fireman
Where the prairie wind blows wild
He killed two hundred passengers
But, thank God, He saved the child

It's a parody of Saved from Death by George Hersee, published 1874;

The engineer sees the child
The whistle screams, Down brakes
And as he throws the lever back
No nerve or muscle shakes

His eye is quick, his nerve is great
His soul knows no alarms
O God! That wheel will crush the child
No, no, 'tis in his arms!

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 09:30 AM

And of course, then there is Haywire Mac's delightful HIS TRUSTY LARIAT.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 07:11 PM

"The Monkey and the Engineer"

Neither the engineer nor the monkey died.

Subject: ADD: We Are the Engineers (Ewan MacColl)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 05:29 PM

One of MacColl's best
Jim Carroll

WE ARE THE ENGINEERS
by Ewan MacColl

Two joined hands was our device when our banner first unfurled,
Hands that knew the feel of tools and helped to build a world.
Two hands became a million hands and fashioned down the years
The machines that make the world go round,
The ships and planes and the diesel trains
The weaving frames and the building cranes,
We are the engineers!

We tamed the fire and harnessed metals, learned a thousand skills,
Our hands have made the tools men use in factories, mines and mills;
Ours the hands that throw the switch that puts the world in gear
That makes the plows that turn the soil,
And the ships and planes and the Diesel trains,
The weaving frames and the building cranes,
We are the engineers !

Jails and transportation hulks faced union pioneers;
Police and spies at every turn, a world of doubt and fear,
Our union sprang from poverty, from hunger, blood and tears,
But we fought the cruel laws
And when we lost, we rose to fight again
For the right to work and live like men,
We are the engineers !

We've stamped our feet in the morning queues, known unemployment's toll;
Known hands go soft in idleness, the slow death on the dole;
The rusty lathe and the silent factory mark the hungry years,
And the grass growing green on the shipyard floor,
And the endless beat of marching feet
And men demanding the right to eat
And work as engineers !

And we, the youngest engineers, now march to claim our rights;
For we have learned that nothing's ever won without a fight.
Every battle fought and won reveals a new frontier,
And a world to be won by those who build
The Ships and planes and the diesel trains,
The weaving frames and the building cranes,
We are the engineers !

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 04:50 PM

The engineer (American and Canadian) or engine driver (British English) is in charge of the locomotive pulling the train.

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: JHW
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 03:28 PM

Mapping the Mason Dixon line was pretty intrepid if you include surveyors with engineers

Subject: ADD: The Old Log Train (Hank Williams Sr.)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 08:06 AM

THE OLD LOG TRAIN
(Hank Williams Sr.)

If you will listen, a song I will sing
About my Daddy who drove a log train
Way down in the southland, in old Alabam
We lived in a place that they call Chapman Town

And late in the evening, when the sun was low
Way off in the distance you could hear the train blow
The folks would come runnin', and Momma would say
"Get the supper on the table, here comes the log train"

Every mornin', at the break of day
He'd grab his lunch bucket and be on his way
Winter or summer, sunshine or rain
Every mornin', he'd run that ole log train

A sweatin' an' swearin' all day long
Shoutin', "Get up there oxens, keep movin' along
Load her up boys, 'cause it looks like rain
I've gotta get rollin', this ole log train"

This story happened, a long time ago
The log train is silent, God called Dad to go
But when I get to Heaven to always remain
I'll listen for the whistle on the ole log train

Subject: ADD: Bill Mason / Kate Shelley & Midnight Special
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 07:43 AM

Bill Mason - recorded by the North Carolina Ramblers in 1927 sung by Roy Harvey, and again in 1929 sung by Charlie Poole.

BILL MASON

Bill Mason was an engineer, he’d been on the road all his life
I’ll never forget the morning he married him a chunk of a wife
Bill hadn’t been married more’n an hour, ‘til up came a message from Kress
And ordered Bill to come down and bring out the night express

While Maggie set by the window, a-waiting for the night express
And if she hadn’t-a done so, she’d-a been a widow, I guess
There were some drunken rascals that came down by the ridge
They came down by the railroad and tore off a rail from the bridge

Well, Maggie heard them working, “I guess there’s something wrong”
In less than fifteen minutes, Bill’s train would be along
She couldn’t come near to tell him, a mile it wouldn’t have done
She just grabbed up the lantern and made for the bridge alone

By Jove, Bill saw the signal, and stopped the night express
He found his Maggie crying on the track in her wedding dress
A-crying and laughing with joy, still holding onto the light
He come ’round the curve a-flying, Bill Mason’s on time tonight

From the poem Bill Mason's Bride, attributed to Bret Harte. Maggie was the real heroine of this story. The poem may owe its inspiration to the true story of Kate Shelley and her brave efforts to save the Midnight Express in Boone County, Iowa in 1881. Here's my version;

KATE SHELLEY AND THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

The lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, the rain poured down all night
A noise outside her window woke Kate Shelley with a fright
The swollen stream in Honey Creek had washed the bridge away
And soon the Midnight Special would be heading on its way

So Kate picked up a lantern and she stepped into the night
The wind it whistled round her head and then blew out her light
The storm it shook the trestle bridge as Kate crawled slowly o’er
But Kate kept on until she reached the station agent’s door        

There Kate stood wild and windswept as she tried to catch her breath
Stop the train, she cried, And spare the passengers from death!
The agent took her message and then down the wire it flew
To Scranton where the train was safely halted by the crew

Kate Shelley was the heroine who saved the midnight train
Her reward from the railroad was a gold watch and a chain
Her story hit the headlines and Kate Shelley she found fame
And trains still cross a bridge today that bears Kate Shelley’s name

The words fit the tune of Blarney Roses, appropriate as Kate Shelley was born in Ireland, leaving County Offaly as an infant.

In fact, the railway company had already stopped their trains from running that night. The Midnight Express, carrying about 200 passengers, was safely stopped at Scranton. However, Kate Shelley helped save two more lives at Honey Creek. The weakened bridge had collapsed under the weight of a pusher locomotive, leaving the crew of four trapped in the swollen river. Kate Shelley led a rescue party back to the creek, where two men were saved. The other two were washed away and drowned.

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 07:40 AM

The Red and The Green,the hogheads' baby doesn't die.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 01:30 AM

The Dummy Line? ;-)

Subject: Songs of brave engineers who DIDN'T die?
From: Tiger
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 02:52 PM

Seriously, are there any?

The thought occurred to me after doing "Wreck of the Number 9" at our Thanksgiving songfest.

A really tough profession - musically, at least.