Rock Island Line–Johnny Horton, among others.
King of the Road
Also: Waltzing Matilda
Moon River (sort of)
Rail enthusiast here…
C’mon guys, come out of the woodwork. I can’t be the only one, and we don’t live in our mother’s basements or wear clothes from 1983…
Do I protest too much? 
Anyway, I lived by the “Main Southern” between Sydney and Melbourne for a couple of years. Great stuff. Sururban “sparks” (electric trains), intercity express trains, mighty quadruple-headed multi-thousand ton freights… bliss. Rocked me to sleep every night.
Where I’m living now is about a half mile from the local line. It only runs suburban electrics normally, but here in Australia we’re blessed with a strong rail heritage movement, and many weekends I wake to the blast of a steam whistle.
Took a ride a few weeks back to the city of Gosford (50 miles north of Sydney) behind a 1942 vintage streamliner Pacific. Still grinning. Good times.
It’s been a very Johnny Cash kind of day. My hottest supervisor wore all black today. No one did it better than Johnny. I knew Johnny Cash had to have a song about a train, he has a bunch, even found a site that had you rate his train songs.
All around the water tank waitin’ for a train
A thousand miles away from home sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said if you’ve got money I’ll see that you don’t walk
Well I haven’t got a nickel not a penny can I show
He said get off you railroad bum and he slammed the boxcar door
I love trains, unfortunately, all our rail lines are being converted to trails and I live in Florida, so no basement for my Lionel. Is snow a fair trade for having enough room to have a permanently displayed train set? Or should I stay in the land of sunshine and just kick out my dogs, husband and child?
As a child, my babysitter lived next to a train. I still relate the sounds of a train to being a wee child in a safe, warm house, where cookies were often baked, hugs often given, and two perfect teenagers bedrooms that personified the 70’s. The son, all black light and velvet, the girl, all “if you love it set it free” peace signs and flowers. And biscuits, home made biscuits and gravy. I miss you Mrs. Martin.
Just me and the stars on that flat car
As the train pulled into Schreiber town
Cop saw me jump and I was runnin’
I was scared he’s gonna run me down
Now I see the porter smilin’ to my left hand
As he’s lookin’ at the money that I hold in my right
And I think how it’s nice he wants to know my name
And I laugh out the window at the night
This is a train song
It’s a song about gettin’ lost
It’s a song about what that cost
This is a train song
For birds that are stuck on the ground
For ears that only listen for distant sounds…
- Murray McLauchlan
“Train Song” (1976)
NEVER mention bob dylan and an arlo guthrie song in the same breath. it’s sacriledge or blasphemy or something.
( i saw arlo in concert last may. the air smelled alot different than the last time i saw him. and they were selling wine instead of beer.
last time i go to a concert in the rich part of town.)
Pardon me if this one’s been done before:
Busted flat in Baton Rouge
Waitin’ for a train – Me and Bobby McGee
There’s also a reference to a train in a Jerry Lee Lewis song which was covered by Meatloaf. I can’t think of the title or the lyric in question right now, but it starts like this:
Left my home in Norfolk, Virginia, California on my mind
Ah yes, here’s the lyric: bought me a through-train ticket and put luggage in my hand. Now what on earth is the title?
I’ve ridden trains in England and Japan, but never the US. I’d like to sometime, though. I’ve spent most of my time in Pennyslvania living near railroad tracks, and dreamt about hopping a freight to parts unknown a few times when I was a teenager.
Thanks for memories of a good song!
*Oh, they give him his orders at Monroe, Virginia
Out on the Southside Line
Saying this is not Number Six it is old Ninety-seven
Got to take her into Lynchburg on time.
She was running down that grade doing ninety miles an hour
When the whistle broke into a scream,
And they found him in the wreck
With his hand on the throttle
And scalded to death by the steam.*
You’ve got to hear the Tex Ritter version – sometime in the late 1940s or early 50s
I grew up in a railroad town and my friends and classmates were the sons or porters and engineers. Old railroad songs have had an appeal. Don’t forget The Wabash Cannonball.
I was thinking of that one, too!
It’s Promised Land . It was written by Chuck Berry, and covered by Elvis.
Other train/hobo songs?
Casey Jones - either the traditional or the Grateful Dead versions
The Big Rock Candy Mountain - It’s not a kids’ song; it’s about a hobo’s idea of paradise. Listen to the original Harry McClintock version on the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Wabash Cannonball
King of the Road
You mean Steve Goodman song, right? I have seen Arlo do a few Dylan tunes, so what would be the problem with if Dylan reciprocated?
The Doors Black train song (of course) Also known as mystery train.
Midnight train to Georgia
Can’t you see by the Alman bros mentions grabbing a southbound all the way to Georgia (i think ga.) til the train…it run out of tracks.
John Henry --folk song. It’s about a man laying steel for the railroad.
I’ll go sit in a corner, since my contribution is so lame.
I know not whether Dylan ever covered Mr. Goodman’s City of New Orleans. However, many people think of it as an Arlo Guthrie song because it was his only top-40 hit and followed Goodman’s less-successful version by only a year. For many people Steve Goodman is only “that guy mentioned in David Allen Coe’s ‘You Never Even Call Me By My Name’.”
A friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song. And told me it was the perfect country and western song …
I wonder if Sgt Schwartz intentionally linkd the two Goodman songs above.
You guys trying to get moved to Cafe Society or what?
On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe – MGM Film “The Harvey Girls”
Casey Junior – Disney Film “Dumbo”
On The Twentieth Century – Broadway musical “On The Twentieth Century”
John Henry (Was A Steel-Drivin’ Man) – Traditional.
And I love the song “City of New Orleans” too, especially the earlier, more evocative non-PC version*. And the best rendition of it was sung by Pete Seegar and Arlo Guthrie in a “Live In Concert” album.
*The line “and freightyards full of old black men” which paints a picture got changed in at least the (dreadful) John Denver cover to something like “and freightyards full of old grey men” or something similar. (which says "I’m afraid to use the word “black”)
*L.A. proved too much for the man
So he’s leavin’ the life he’s come to know
He said he’s goin’ back to find what’s left of his world
The world he left behind not so long ago
He’s leavin’
on that midnight train to Georgia
Said he’s goin’ back to find
the simpler place and time
I’ll be with him
on that midnight train to Georgia
I’d rather live in his world
than live without him in mine
*
The most unusual trip I ever took was on the Amtrak from Seattle to Minneapolis during Christmas vacation. It was replete with guitar singers, drunks, fistfights, loose women, and a guy who overdosed. What a weird ride that was. . .
You Wonder Why I’m a Hobo - trad.
Waiting for the ‘B’ Train - Christine Lavin
Alabama Bound - trad.
Corey’s Coming - Harry Chapin (Well, it’s a train yard - that’s close enough, right?)
This Train Revised - Indigo Girls
Southbound Train - Julie Gold
This Train - trad.
Hard Travelin’ - trad.
Just a few.
gabriela, great story!
Oh, well. To me an ‘oldie’ is by The Sex Pistols. I’m not up on the really mouldy ones. Anyway…
Homeward Bound, Simon & Garfunkel
Ya don’t get mouldy until after the body’s been decomposing a while. Sorry, Arlo and Dylan don’t count. 
You’re just iggerent about train songs.
Seriously, for about 100 years, they were the connection for this country, and there were lots of songs written during that time about them. We’ve barely touched the tip of the iceberg, here.
Chattanooga Choo-Choo - by all sorts of people. I don’t know if it’s a traditional one, or not.
*Neon signs a-flashin’, taxi cabs and buses passin’ through the night
A distant moanin’ of a train seems to play a sad refrain to the night
A rainy night in Georgia, such a rainy night in Georgia
Lord, I believe it’s rainin’ all over the world
I feel like it’s rainin’ all over the world
How many times I wondered
It still comes out the same
No matter how you look at it or think of it
It’s life and you just got to play the game
I find me a place in a box car, so I take my guitar to pass some time
Late at night when it’s hard to rest I hold your picture to my chest and I feel fine
(minor scat) But it’s a rainy night in Georgia, baby, it’s a rainy night in Georgia I
feel it’s rainin’ all over the world, kinda lonely now And it’s rainin’ all over the
world*
–Brook Benton