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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Tootler Date: 31 Aug 10 - 04:11 PM I know that these locomotives might look a bit Mickey Mouse compared to a Pennsylvania K4s Nothing quite prepares you for the scale of American trains. I visited the Ford Museum in Detroit a few years back and in the hall I first went into I was confronted by a Malet Loco and I was completely stunned by the sheer size of it. Not even European trains are that big and they are quite a bit larger than ours. |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Mooh Date: 31 Aug 10 - 07:58 PM Has this been mentioned? The Scholar Maura O'Connell The train from Sligo moves too slow as it brings her from the school below She wants to be home faster than the train from Sligo ever can and Wonders where the passing time goes creeping by the window my, oh my It's getting longer than it ever has before. Eyes wide as silver dollars, I can't think why, but she's a scholar Hold on; it seems so long to learn what's right from what is wrong. Oh, school books and fancy collars; I might not care to be a scholar Hold on, her daddy tells her, learn to sing your song. The train to Sligo moves too fast when holidays are gone at last And winter nights are here again, please promise me you'll write me then. It's two long weeks till I get home, I can't help feeling all alone. If someone doesn't write me soon I'll simply fade away. Eyes wide as silver dollars, I can't think why, but she's a scholar Hold on; it seems so long to learn what's right from what is wrong. Oh, school books and fancy collars; I might not care to be a scholar Hold on, her daddy tells her, learn to sing your song. (Not sure of lyric accuracy.) Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Mooh Date: 31 Aug 10 - 08:01 PM Also really dig Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railway Trilogy. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Alice Date: 01 Sep 10 - 01:42 PM My father worked for the Great Northern Railway in Montana from the time he was 14 years old, in 1916, carrying railroad ties, to his retirement when he was 65, just before the Great Northern merged with the Northern Pacific and Burlington Route. Many of those memories have inspired paintings and are the subject of some of my work. Lately I've done some small paintings this month and posted them online. The logo of the Great Northern on a pin, the old depots, etc. Click Here For Images and my memories. I remember going with my dad on Saturdays down to the depot in Helena, MT, where he would do paperwork and check on things while no one else was around. I would play with the big staplers and rubber stamps. The wood floors would creak, the freight room would be cold and stacked with crates. Montana lost most of its passenger trains. We only have the one left on the highline that goes from the east through Glacier Park to Seattle. I wish the passenger trains would come back in the rest of the state. We have freight trains going through our town day and night, "hear that lonesome whistle blow". Alice |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Clontarf83 Date: 01 Sep 10 - 08:04 PM Katlaughing--re your inquiry about train videos by my brother Norman McAdams--try the website of the Irish Railway Record Society, and see if anyone can send you stuff http://www.irrs.ie/ |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: open mike Date: 02 Sep 10 - 03:34 AM Alice--it is great to hear about your dad and the trains! Also great to see all the paintings you have been creating lately! I remember the RR station in Livingston (i presume?) having symbols like yin yang in red and black. What rr line went thru there? I think it was the symbol logo for the rr line. perhaps it stood for the meeting of the east and west...the northern pacific.... http://www.timslife.com/images/shop/shop11/wint13.jpg |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Alice Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:45 PM The yin/yang symbol in red and black was the logo of the Northern Pacific. It was the line along the southern part of Montana, so it went through Bozeman and Livingston. The passenger depot in Livingston was preserved and is used by the community now for a museum, and for art festivals, etc. Livingston Depot Center In Bozeman, the freight depot for the Northern Pacific was refurbished by a local restaurant company called Montana Ale Works. They use the yin yang logo and have old railroad photos framed inside the building and a railroad car along side as an outdoor room in good weather. Montana Ale Works Alice |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Alice Date: 02 Sep 10 - 05:47 PM direct link to the blog railroad paintings |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Alice Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:30 PM Best Link to see the old Northern Pacific building |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Bobert Date: 02 Sep 10 - 07:46 PM I still include several train songs in every set... Come a long way since postin' to this thread back on '02... But still love tarins and train songs... BTW, my mom's father (my grandaddy) was an engineer... Okay, it wasn't all that romant6ic... He pushed and pulled cars all around Detroit... And just like this train I'm stuck on this line Couldn't quit now Even if I tried (from one of my oldest songs, "Amtrack Blues" from the 60s and written on a train from New York to DC...)... B~ |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Ian Fyvie Date: 07 Jan 11 - 10:06 PM Just over four months since the last posting! I stumbled across the thread after a "follow your nose" session on Mudcat. My comments - the two big names of UK railway songs have been mentioned, Ewan McColl and Dave Goulder. I shouilkd add Don Bilston I'm told (also mentioned above - but I'm not familiar withy his songs. The big difference in theme between US and UK songs,quite rightly, have been pointed out as (US) stories of people traveling around, with the train as the backdrop rather than the subject' (UK) stories of railway WORKERS; about the job, lamenting the change in technology with modernization. More recently, we've had the PRESERVATION movement as a subject. Its happened in many countries with a strong railway tradition - but nowhere more than in Britain. Indeed I heard a song about a preserved railway within a few weeks of discovering folk clubs (1973) - having already written some myself whilst still involved with pop bands! *My song "So Ride With Me", about the Watercress Line/Mid-Hants Railway was recorded (in 1975 I think) by band "Muffin The Mule" (seriously!) on Forest Track Records. Another: "We're All For Swanage" was recorded by Dorset band: Cottage Industry in the early 1980s. I have 11 railway songs in my current repertoire - learning/relearning more in 2011. Ian Fyvie |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Joe_F Date: 08 Jan 11 - 09:31 PM Ten Thousand Miles from Home and, of course, I've Been Working on the Railroad |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 05 Jun 11 - 04:39 AM Favourite train song? Since my main interest is calypso, I first thing I turn up in my head is "New York Subway." |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: David C. Carter Date: 05 Jun 11 - 05:49 AM "Southern Flyer" by:Lonesome EJ. That's a great song! Sorry...Can't do Blue Sticky Clickies. David. |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Max Johnson Date: 05 Jun 11 - 09:50 AM It is odd, yes, that there are so few British folk songs about trains. Especially when you consider the fact that Sir Nigel Gresley rhymes so nicely with Elvis Presley. But they are celebrated in poetry of course, two of the best-known being 'Adelstrop' and 'The Night Mail'. Favourite songs are: Smokestack Lightnin', Fulsome Prison Blues, and The Ballad of the FFV. Favourite train film is 'The Train', starring Burt Lancaster. ...and may I take this opportunity to recommend Andrew Martin's 'Railway Detective' books, set on the Victorian and Edwardian railways? |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Richard from Liverpool Date: 05 Jun 11 - 11:25 AM There are a few British Isle railway songs in "The Shuttle and Cage: Industrial Folk Ballads" ed. Ewan MacColl: * Poor Paddy Works on the Railway * The Iron Hrose ("...I gaed upon an iron road, a rail they did it ca', man, an' rugget be an iron horse, an awfu' beast to draw, man") * The Fireman's not for me ("Come all you young maidens, take warning from me, Shun all engine firemen and their company; He'll tell you he loves you and all kinds of lies, But the one that he loves is the train that he drives"; this one's by MacColl himself I think. Others I can think of: * Are ye right there Michael, are ye right, by Percy French - I've heard my father singing this, he does a very good rendition of it. * A New Song on the Opening of the Birmingham to Liverpool Railway in Roy Palmer's A Touch on the Times There's an album by Harry Boardman et al which sounds like it has lots of interesting railway songs from the British Isles on it: Steam Ballads (about half way down that page) |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Richard from Liverpool Date: 05 Jun 11 - 08:31 PM Just taken another look at "The Shuttle and Cage" and seen even more: * Moses of the Mail ("It was a dark and stormy night, the snow was falling fast, I stood on Thorpebridge junction where the reckless Moses passed") * Cosher Bailey's engine ("Cosher Bailey had an engine, It was always wanting mending, And according to her power she could do four mile an hour") * Cannily, cannily Not a bad little haul, six railway songs in one little book! |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Joe Offer Date: 06 Jun 11 - 01:38 AM Railroad Photographer Richard Steinheimer died in Sacramento on May 4, 2011. You can see some of his wonderful railroad photography with this Google search (click) -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: GUEST,EJL Date: 06 Jun 11 - 03:41 PM To add to this train song discussion, I have written three train songs, one of them for my grandfather who worked in the shops "When The Steam Trains Rolled". Another, a lament called "Trains Don't Run Here Anymore", both on my first CD. The third song is "National Dream" which is about almost the same thing. Train service has all but disappeared in Eastern Canada and other parts of this country. Rail lines are now walking trails, so we went from trails to rails to trails. Check this site for lots of Canadian Train Songs: http://www.irontrail.ca/ |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: GUEST,Don Wise Date: 07 Dec 11 - 11:12 AM The (West)german rock singer Udo Lindenberg was so pissed off about the then GDR Government refusing him permission to tour in the GDR that he rewrote "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" as "Der Sonderzug nach Pankow". Pankow is the district of (East)Berlin where the GDR Government was located. This was not long before 'The Wall' started to collapse. I've written a couple of songs that have trains or railways somewhere in the text: "Parcels Joe" based on a story I read concerning the marshalling yard and loco shed at Rowsley, Derbyshire...and "Rolling Wheels" which is vaguely american influenced-a sort of 'hear that whistle down in the valley below' song. I'm ttrying to get them out to a wider public........... There is a swedish song called "Jag är födda i en stuga"(I was born in a cabin) which deals with a navvy's life building railways. Sweden also has some shanty/chain-gang like work songs from navvies and track gangs. |
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Subject: RE: Discussion: Love Affair With Trains From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler Date: 26 May 21 - 04:36 AM Looks like this thread has been revived by a spurious post. However, I don't see Stanley Accrington's "Last train from Bacup" mentioned above. There are extra verses written by Mike Nelson and by my wife as well. Stanley was a station master on BR in his other life and has written a few railway related songs. We had a disaster theme at our zoom night the other week and he performed one about the Quintinshill disaster, really upped the bodycount! Red for Danger is still being used as a textbook for training railwaymen in the history and development of signaling systems. Robin This thread is 1/4 discussion and 3/4 deleted spam. It will be closed for now, but if you need to post remarks ask a moderator to reopen it. Thanks. ---mudelf |
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