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Three Country and Three Rock Songs about Trains
A Plethora of Pop writing challenge: Your favorite songs about transportation
I love the freedom of viewing, eating, reading, walking around, sleeping while traveling by train. Can’t do that if you’re driving, and lord knows you can’t do that on a plane these days. My fondest train ride was a scenic cruiser through the Rockies when I was about eight— I’d sit in the upper deck observation car and watch the magnificent mountains zoom by.
Railroads are also an easy choice for the Plethora of Pop “songs / stories about transportation” challenge. There seem to be more country songs about trains than about successful romances. Jimmie Rodgers, one of the pioneers of recorded country music, was known as “The Singing Brakeman,” and he’d often pose in railway garb long after he was rich enough to buy his own boxcar.
J. P. Nestor and Norman Edmonds, “Train on the Island”
Most country songs depict trains as the instrument of separation or reunion. In…
