Must Have Been a Train That Took Me Away From Here, But It's a Train That Will Take Me Home: A playlist for the dying romance of the rails.

   The once majestic and gilded splendor of these smoking monoliths, chugging people to and from their grandiose dreams in romantic scenes of uniformed men hauling steamer trunks and put-together ladies in wide-brimmed hats carrying leather train cases in their dainty lace-gloved hands waving goodbye and blowing kisses out of the half window as they train slowly pulls out of the station, have been replaced with utilitarian steel boxcars covered in scrawled neon graffiti, moving lodes of nondescript cargo and only coming to mind when stuck behind one at a dwindling railroad crossing.  I always look down the line with a faraway look and my pulse beats a little faster when I can make out that old Union Pacific logo on one of the passing cars.  In a full-throttle society, the public's patience wears thin in front of the clanging bell and flashing red light.  But a shred of grandeur remains with the train; their sheer power, the blaring cacophony. There is something unmistakably nostalgic and even utterly American about the train. The amount of train songs in existence is exhausting, even in the face of the train's fade into obscurity and relic-hood.  So here's a half-hearted attempt at throwing some of them together in a quasi-coherent manner.   Dreams die quietly without hope and adrenaline.  Here's to gaining a little momentum in our coal-fueled daydreams and because sometimes you just want to take the first thing smokin' the hell out of town.  It must have been a train that took me away from here and a train can bring me home...

Tom Waits- Train Song


Willie Nelson- City of New Orleans


William Elliot Whitmore- Lift My Jug


Woody Guthrie- Hobo's Lullaby


Jimmie Rodgers- Waiting for a Train


Arlo Guthrie- Last Train to Glory


The Flying Burrito Brothers- The Train Song





Steve Earle- Mystery Train Part 2


Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee- Rock Island Line


Bob Marley- This Train is Bound for Glory/Guava Jelly


Downbound Train- Chuck Berry


The Impressions- People Get Ready


Spike Driver's Blues- Mississippi John Hurt


Lonnie Johnson- Long Black Train


Leadbelly- Alabama Bound


Charley Pride- Atlantic Coastal Line


Johnny Cash- Orange Blossom Special


Woody Guthrie- Little Black Train


Hank Williams Sr.- Lonesome Whistle


Roy Acuff- Freight Train Blues


Boxcar Willie- Old Train Song Medley  (Some bang for your buck.)


Jerry Jeff Walker- Desperadoes Waiting for a Train


Hank Williams Sr.- The Devil's Train


Townes Van Zandt- Wabash Cannonball/Fraulein


Tom Waits- Down There By The Train