I know a few railroaders who use the beginning of Ozzy Osborne's Crazy Train, with it's demonic "All Aboard!", as their ringtone for the crew callers. <g>

One song that doesn't get much attention, but probably has a lot of knowledge and authenticity to it is Neil Young's Southern Pacific. Since Neil is a long-time Lionel fan and former co-owner of Lionel, he brought some knowledge of SP's history to the song. You know when he sings about the Daylight he's probably seen 4449.

I also want to mention Bob Seger's Long Twin Silver Lines as a non-company or non-train specific railroad song.

The Jersey-based band Railroad Earth has a new song about the Jupiter and the 119 on their latest album. Lyrics at link:

http://railroadearth.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1140

Walt Lankenau

Pat Metheny, "Last Train Home":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq5oqY3-vhg

Doobie Brothers, "Long Train Runnin":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cViggFZFlxU

Gee whiz, I take a break from looking at this thread, and look what shows up! Some interesting other material.

Arthur Honegger's "Pacific 231" became the theme for a short film from 1949, directed by Jean Mitry, and won a Cannes film award at the time. If you like watching motion and valve gear (on poppet-valved compound 4-6-2s, no less), this one is for you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKRCJhLU7rs

At about the same time, a Swedish filmaker named Gosta Werner produced this film about train travel; the notes with the video clips suggest this one had some acclaim ascribed to it as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJZdyto4cV4&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avtMR9Pa ... h_response

My complaint--we had some wonderful and distinctive things in American railroading in the classic era. Did anybody do anything along these lines here? It seems somebody should have, but I don't know of anything.

The closest I could find to this was a promotional film by the New York Central, which features "Dance of the Hours" as part of the soundtrack (this is better known today as a novelty tune, "Hello Mother, Hello Father").

This particular variation has a narrator that is not on another version, which has only the music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4yZY8_-xg4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhSj_h5m0gQ

Have fun.

Oh another American classical work i had forgotten was Charles Ives piano work "The Celestial Railroad". It is based on a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne of the same title. Basically, a man falls asleep and dreams about a taking a train to the so-called celestial city. Ives loved transcendentalist writers, which inspired him to write additional works like his Concord Sonata.

Take Care
Steve Piwowarski

Don't forget John Denver's "All Aboard" album—his final recording before tragically crashing his kit plane off the coast of Monterey Peninsula. It won him a posthumous Grammy, and the cover art features him in the cab of Roaring Camp & Big Trees No. 1 "Dixiana." (The photo shoot came about after he apparently wandered into the shop in Felton one day while they were shutting down and, according to a friend working there at the time, uttered something along the lines of, "Whoa man, far out!")