Uploaded October 2020 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Day 199 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "Railroad trains hurtling with smoke, fire, and thunder across peaceful landscapes at night, rushing remorseless as fate along the iron rail pathways, holding to a fixed timetable and repeating the performance every midnight or early morning "fo' da". Out of this a black worker has made a song that pounds home with the beats and accents of a Limited Express.
"The grind of flanges, steel burnishing steel hit a tireless syncopation, is here, in melody and overtone. All night long the trains weave; every night they repeat the weave; civilization hangs on the time table. The "same train" runs, and always "all night long.” A smokestack with a maroon plume of sparks, a firebox square of crimson, the on rushing monotone of a strong, long- drawn locomotive whistle thus the tempo. …
"In Montevallo at the State Teachers College of Alabama they sing it; and there are variants at the University of Georgia, and at the State Teachers College at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Additional verses may have the same train" carrying "sister," "brother," and so on."
Day 199 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "Railroad trains hurtling with smoke, fire, and thunder across peaceful landscapes at night, rushing remorseless as fate along the iron rail pathways, holding to a fixed timetable and repeating the performance every midnight or early morning "fo' da". Out of this a black worker has made a song that pounds home with the beats and accents of a Limited Express.
"The grind of flanges, steel burnishing steel hit a tireless syncopation, is here, in melody and overtone. All night long the trains weave; every night they repeat the weave; civilization hangs on the time table. The "same train" runs, and always "all night long.” A smokestack with a maroon plume of sparks, a firebox square of crimson, the on rushing monotone of a strong, long- drawn locomotive whistle thus the tempo. …
"In Montevallo at the State Teachers College of Alabama they sing it; and there are variants at the University of Georgia, and at the State Teachers College at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Additional verses may have the same train" carrying "sister," "brother," and so on."
