{"id":3093,"date":"2018-06-16T18:01:16","date_gmt":"2018-06-16T18:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jessicaeblack.wordpress.com\/?p=3093"},"modified":"2021-08-14T15:50:43","modified_gmt":"2021-08-14T22:50:43","slug":"trains-and-many-train-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicaeblack.org\/everythingelse\/2018\/06\/16\/trains-and-many-train-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Trains and (many) train songs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Update 29 August 2019:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I’ve recently read a fascinating<\/strong><\/em> book that is relevant to this blog. The Associates: Four Capitalists Who Created California<\/a> tells about the making of the railroad and how it shaped the state of California. The Associates were Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins; the book focuses on Huntington, but it does a good job of describing the others too. Crooks, the lot of them, but brilliant., and they certainly did determine the fate of much of California. In the meantime, a fun blog on trains and many<\/em> train songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See my blog on Many HORSE <\/strong>songs<\/a>! It includes English translations of songs in Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"trains
Mt. Shasta in the background, railroad in Siskiyou County, CA.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I know that there are plenty of lists of train songs out there, but they tend to repeat the same songs. (Yeah, there’s a reason for that; I’ll probably have those best-of-train-songs here too). So here is my list of 100 and counting; and to be clear, for me a train song is any that mentions a train, even if–or especially if-it’s not really about trains. Most train songs aren’t really about trains… Often train<\/em> songs aren’t about trains at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little background<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I had been trying to share a song a day with someone for a week or so when I started this blog, and that’s easier to do if you’ve got a theme.  I tried to do morning, but it just wasn’t working for me. Then I thought about doing a rain theme (and might do that next), but I’m not in the mood at the present for the melancholy of rain<\/em> songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many days ago now, I decided trains<\/strong> were more fun than mornings. Trains always <\/em>work for me, especially<\/strong> when I’d really like to be going somewhere.

There are many train songs here.  At first, I simply listed them.  At the bottom of the list, I include some that were shared with me.  Finally, there are several categories: Blues, Train Wreck Songs, Railroad working songs (gandy dancer songs), Children’s songs, and foreign language train songs (mainly Spanish, a few French).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you would like to tell me your favorite song, or make a suggestion after having a look at my list, please complete this google poll:<\/p>\n\n\n\n