For Our “Railhead” Readers
. . . especially Ex-PH2 and API. The tune is self-explanatory – once you know a bit of baclground.
The bit of background: like the US, Canada also made major efforts to build a transcontinental railroad. (The term “navvy” is British slang – adopted in Canadian English – for a railway laborer.) Their projects began in earnest with the establishment of Canada as a Confederation in 1867, and accelerated greatly with the entry of British Columbia into Canada in 1871.
Indeed, one of the conditions of British Columbia’s entry into Canada in 1871 was completion of a transcontinental railroad within a decade. While they didn’t make that deadline, they came reasonably close.
The Canadian transcontinental railroad was completed with the driving of the Last Spike at Cragellatchie, BC, on 7 November 1885. It’s approximately 1,600 km longer than the US transcontinental railroad.
Lightfoot’s tune commemorates the building of this railroad, and the men who built it. It was commissioned for Canada’s Centennial in 1967 by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation; it aired in a special broadcast on 1 January 1967.
Lightfoot has been called “a national treasure” by The Band’s primary songwriter Robbie Robertson (both are Canadian). Bob Dylan has been quoted as saying that whenever he hears a Lightfoot song he “wished it would last forever”.
The man is indeed good. If you’ve forgotten just how good, you might want to give some of his work another listen.
Category: Historical, Pointless blather, Who knows
Politics aside, he’s a damn good performer.
I’ve got a number of his songs on my playlist besides the ubiquitous, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” One of my favorites by him:
https://youtu.be/NWamoeeAIHs
Gordon Lightfoot has been one of the few people who maintained the tradition of the bard. I wish there were more people like him.
Thanks, Hondo!
I’m wondering if I should get tickets for the show June 22 here in Tucson – I haven’t seen him since the mid 90s at a gig in Vegas. Been a fan since I was a kid, I think it’s time for “Sundown”.
I’d say go for it. I saw him a couple of years ago. His voice has lost a lot of the power and richness it used to have (not surprising given the health issues he had several years ago that nearly killed him). Instrumentally, he and his band sounded great, and the songs can’t be beat. Just don’t expect him to sound like he did when he was 30 or 40.
Nice tune! I wonder which of Canada’s two main railroads was finished first, Canadian Pacific (CP) or Canadian National(CN)?
API, are you looking for a train video again?
Here you go: oldest narrow gauge still running. Enjoy it.
The first part is definitely the Durango & Silverton. Been there, rode that and enjoyed it as well. The second part is on dual gauge track, likely a museum, with a V & T Standard Gauge woodburner. NICE footage of that mixed freight in the third part back on the D & S NG!
Living here in Colorado, I’ve gotten to ride D&S, Pikes Peak Cog, and Georgetown loop, all great rides of classic railroads.. it’s kinda funny in light of the fact that i grew up south of Philly, right near the old Baldwin Locomotive Plant (where they also made P17 Enfield rifles for WWI.. and yes I have one of those as well, but those rifles are a whole story in themselves)
OOh, for anyone going through PA, the Strasburg railroad museum is definitely worth the stop.
Don’t forget the railroad in Wiliams Arizona, from Williams to the Grand Canyon! fun trip!
You mean near Eddystone? A trip to Strasburg is definitely on my bucket list! I’ve ridden the Georgetown loop as well as ridden aboard a Galloping Goose at the CO Railroad Museum in Golden in addition to two trips on the D & S NG. Next trip to CO we’re riding on the Cumbres & Toltec, haven’t done that yet and a ride aboard a NS Steam Excursion is definitely in the future, hopefully behind NS 611. I’m looking forward to the UPRR finishing the restoration of “Big Boy” 4014 as well, tickets to ride excursions behind that beast are gonna sell out in no time!
That does sounds awesome API! and yes, it’s in Eddystone, i grew up about 3 miles from there. The next time you’re coming to CO, ask Jonn for my email, and let me know, i’d be happy to buy the first round!
I have the book “Diesels From Eddystone” which also tells about the Baldwin Locomotive Works producing Ship Propellers and Sherman Tanks during WWII.
I’ll have to look that up.. I toured the factory, well after it shut down, but the old turn table was still there, and the admin building.. even as run down and abandoned as it was it was still very cool and impressive, especially when you knew / were interested in the history
Hi Ex, My grandpa used to be an engineer on the Durango Silverton. I still have his engineer manual for the locomotive and his old railroad watch and keys! I love the old steam engines the best!
CPR. Wikipedia’s article on the CPR gives additional background.
One of the things you tend to discover as you get older is that progress doesn’t always mean improvement. Sometimes things really were better in the old days.
It so happens that a few days ago I was reading an analysis of the current competition between Amtrak and some of the newer express coach lines such as Megabus. The writer, an academic, went on at some length about the financial aspects but somehow managed to avoid the fact that most public transportation now is about one step up from traveling in a shipping container with benches.
It also so happens that a few days prior to that, I had been wandering around the online realm looking at vintage photography and graphics. Spend any time with such stuff, and it isn’t hard to get a sense that railroads were once a big part of the culture, and there was a different approach to moving people around.
The trains had names. Sunset Limited. City of Denver. Super Chief. The stations were often the nicest architecture in town. We seemed to have lost something when that went away. It might have been the idea that the journey can be its own reward.
“The trains had names. Sunset Limited. City of Denver. Super Chief.” Not only that, different railroads had different names for their preium trains. Union Pacific had their “City” Streamliners , Santa Fe (AT & SF)had the Chief Stramliners, Chicago and North Western (C&NW) had “Route of the 400s” emblazoned on their freight engines, Rock Island was “Route of the Rockets” and Burlington (Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, CB & Q) had the Zehyrs. If I ever decide to visit Illinois it’ll be to visit the IRM as well. It seems like American railroads have largely decided to be as bland as possible in most cases these days with CSX being the worst.
My first train ride was when I was seven years old. Mama and us kids were living with Grammaw and Grampaw in Owensboro, Kentucky, while Daddy was in the Korean War. He sent for us to join him at Ashiya Air Force Base on the island of Kyushu in Japan. So, we took the train from Owensboro, Kentucky to Chicago, Illinois, where we transferred to the Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, and Pacific Railroad (i.e., the “Milwaukee Road”) “Olympian Hiawatha”, to travel to Seattle, Washington. From there, we boarded the “USNS GENERAL M. M. PATRICK” (AP-150) and sailed to Yokohama, Japan, becoming inducted into the “Domain of the Golden Dragon” when we crossed the International Dateline. Daddy met us in Yokohama, and we rode the train to Ashiya. Once, on Armed Forces Day, we rode the train on and around Fort Bragg, North Carolina. When we were living in El Paso, Texas, I ran away from home and hopped a Southern Pacific “hot shot” freight train to San Antonio, Texas, riding in a boxcar with a group of Mexicans. As a soldier in the United States Army, I rode a troop train from Frankfort to Kaiserslautern, Germany. When I was in Japan on Rest and Recuperation leave from the war in the old Republic of Viet Nam, I rode the “Bullet Train” from Osaka to Tokyo, which at that time, was the fastest train in the World. When I was stationed in Korea, I took the train from Won Ju to Seoul, where I attended church each Sunday. The bus was actually faster, but I wanted the experience of riding the train. Here in the United States of America, on numerous occasions, I’ve ridden the Amtrak “California Zephyr”, “Capital Limited”, “Cardinal”, and “Silver Meteor” to and from Salt Lake City, Utah and Fayetteville, North Carolina. I recently purchased a camcorder and a scanner, so I can drive down to Grand Junction, Colorado and make video recordings of passing railroad trains, while listening to train crews on the radio. When I lived at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Mississippi, I… Read more »
I hear you on the Trains Magazine webcam, have you looked around at some of the others like the one in Roanoke, VA? I once watched N & W 611 making a ferry move on that one one day.
There’s also continuous live streaming video from Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska, the largest railroad yard in the World.
The URL is:
http://visitnorthplatte.com/live-bailey-yard-web-cam/
Here’s the URL where you can watch the continuous live streaming video from the railroad depot in Lawrence, Kansas:
http://lawrencetraincam.com/
There’s not a lot of activity there, but the Amtrak Texas “Eagle” stops there twice a day.
Also, you can sometimes hear train crew radio traffic being broadcast on the scanner.
Here’s the Roanoke Rail cam:
http://www.roanokerailcam.com/
Here’s Galesburg Rail Museum’s live cam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXf2G3hYgwM
I JUST NOW stumbled across this one in Ashland VA, likely on the former RF & P that has sound as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad0ChfeAWdo
Just for shits & giggles here’s the Merrimac WI ferry boat live stream:
P.S. On the YouTube live feeds you can go back a few hours prior to catch what you might have missed, that’s how I just saw footage of the Auto Train going through Ashland when I checked that live cam out. You take your mouse pointer to the bottom of the video screen like when you want to go back to a certain part of a video and you can go back a few hours of that camera’s footage.
I have to say I envy you JRM, it’s extremely likely you got to ride The Milwaukee Road (C,M, St.P & P)through electrified territory where your train was likely pulled by either a boxcab electric, a “Little Joe” or a “Bi-Polar” Electric Locomotive, the latter of which i have seen and photographed THE last of its kind which is on display at The National Museum of Transport in Kirkwood MO which is a Western Suburb of St. Louis MO, a VERY family-friendly Railroad Museum which also has quite an Antique Car and Truck Collection as well!
Good to know that is still there, used to go there as a kid. That was the sticks when I was younger, and one of the cooler places in the county you could go.
Two of my other favorite railroad-themed songs are “The Rock Island Line” by Johnny Cash and “The City of New Orleans” sung by Arlo Guthrie. Times change and the Illinois Central Railroad is no more, they got bought out by CNRR years ago and “Canadian National” WOULD NOT fit into that song!
The URL for my own recording of that song:
https://youtu.be/iil96_-wgZE
“THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS”
By STEVE GOODMAN
VERSE # 1:
Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail.
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey,
The train pulls out at Kankakee.
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin’ trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.
CHORUS:
Good morning America, how are you?
Don’t you know me? I’m your native son.
I’m the train they call,
The City of New Orleans,
I’ll be gone five hundred miles
When the day is done.
VERSE # 2:
Dealin’ card games with
The old men in the club car.
Penny a point, ain’t no one keepin’ score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle.
Feel the wheels rumbling underneath the floor.
And the sons of Pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father’s magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep
Are rocking to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.
VERSE # 3:
Night time on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we’ll be there by morning.
Through the Mississippi darkness,
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain’t heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain.
This train’s got the disappearing railroad blues.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iil96_-wgZE
Please excuse my experiment with the embedding code.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iil96_-wgZE&w=425&h=239%5D
It still doesn’t work!
What am I doing wrong?
Other folks can post a video recording here, so why can’t I?
I used to be able to, but now, it doesn’t work anymore.
Sing along with me!
I wish they’d bring back the passenger lines that used to be everywhere. Then I could go visit my sister occasionally without having to drive for hours or take a flight on an airplane.
I concur with you about taking a train, Ex-PH2! It’s nothing like when you’re crammed like cattle into an aluminum tube after getting poked, interrogated and probed, you can get up and take a stroll to the Dining car or in the Good Old Days one could go relax in the rear observation car which often had a lounge where people could have a drink and relax while the scenery sped by or if the train you were on had a Domeliner, THAT was the car to ride in while going out West! I was fortunate enough to ride in a Domeliner going over Donner Pass on what was then the SP (Southern Pacific)in the mid Seventies. A beautiful ride, even if I had to ride with Amtrak!
One of the things I’ve found interesting is that when the transcontinental railroad was built in the 1860s, the surveyors on the project determined that the best way to get over the Rockies and Sierras to Sacramento was to use the Platte River route starting in Nebraska. Flash forward almost 100 years to the start of construction of the Interstate 80 highway, it could have been put almost anywhere, and it was determined from new surveys that the best route was– wait for it– starting along the Platte River in Nebraska.
To this day there are a lot of places, including Donner Pass, where you can almost throw a rock and hit the rail-bed from the highway.
OR I-70 through Western Colorado where the UPRR occupies one side of the Colorado River and I-70 the other side.
During one of my trips on the Amtrak “California Zephyr”, the train was westbound along the Colorado River, next to I-70, and approaching Glenwood Springs, Colorado (where Doc Holliday is buried in a secret location).
As I watched from window, I saw a guy sitting on the bank fishing, and next to him was a lovely young lady, completely naked, joyfully hopping up and down, laughing, while waving to the passing train.
What a show!
Also, folks riding on the Colorado River in inflatable rubber rafts enjoy mooning the train as it goes by!
On a whim I drove an hour or two to Montreal and hopped the train to Toronto to see a Blue Jays game. Nice experience and much different from the freight trains my father drove.
Highly recommended and my bucket list includes the Canadian Coast To Coast
THAT sounds like a train I’d want a Dome liner seat on!
My father was an Engineer for The Canadian Pacific Railroad. Sometimes people forget that Canada went through a western expansion like the Americans did
I’ve seen Lightfoot three times, most recently a few months back, 20MAR17. He doesn’t have the voice he once had but his B game is good enough for me. He has to avoid certain songs b/c he doesn’t have the range to nail them as well as he once did. Folks, if you want a few hours of some of the best music, mostly ballads and folk songs, queue a few hours of Lightfoot, Croce and Fogelberg. Music doesn’t get much better than that.
The only train ride I’ve taken was Raleigh to Orlando, 1968, from induction center to boot.
My first train ride must have been during my rug rat days on the Santa Fe Chief from Topeka KS to Joliet IL. I don’t remember much other than the loud *THUMP!* the car trucks made passing over a “diamond” which is where two tracks intersect.
Thinking of hooking up for an extended Amtrak ride through several states over a few weeks.
Add me to the list of Gordon Lightfoot fans. Like many guys of the older generation, I learned some guitar back in high school and college. When I pick up a guitar now, Lightfoot songs seem to come out of it more than others.
And… I didn’t know there were railfans hanging out here. I’ve volunteered the past few years at the Steam Railroading Institute in Michigan, home of this beast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMrqbFdxikU
If you’ve watched the movie “The Polar Express”, you’ve heard the locomotive in the soundtrack.
“The Polar Express”, didn’t they use sound effects from Pere Marquette #1225? That’s yet another Steam loco that was resurrected from park display to fully operational!
“RAILNERD” is a term I apply to myself without hesitation and it comes from my college days in Pittsburg KS when I was looking around the KCS (Kansas City Southern) shops that were there at that time when a fellow Railfan introduced himself to me saying “HI, my name is [Unable to remember], and I’m ALWAYS happy to meet a fellow Railnerd!”. He was fun to meet and hang out with as well as a fellow “Railnerd”.
wow… first multi-day rock festival I ever attended was in Pittsburgh. Ate at Chicken Annie’s too (well, might have been Chicken Mary’s: been almost 50 years since then)- bucket list item to go back.
I love train songs ! some of my favorites are:
John Mayall & Paul Butterfield doing
“Riding on the L&N”
Paul Butterfield and The Band from Last Waltz “Mystery Train”
Joe Bonomassa Live at the Vienna Opera House “Slow Train”
And my latest find and I recommend this listen is Mean Mary doing “Iron Horse” , you tube her at https://you.be/6CNB50LUPMO
Johnny Cash: “Wreck of the Old 97”
Grateful Dead: “Casey Jones”
New Riders of the Purple Sage “Glendale Train”
Almost anyone doing “Orange Blossom Special” “500 Miles” “Desperadoes Waiting For A Train”ht Train”
and no one but Johnny Cash for “Folsom Prison Blues”
How about Johnny Horton’s take on “Wabash Cannonball”?