Brave Engineer (I), The

DESCRIPTION: "Georgie's mother came to him with a bucket on her arm." She warns him against trying to run his train too fast in order to make up time. He says he will heed her, but he drives too hard at Big Bend Tunnel and he crashes and is killed
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (recording, Roy Harvey)
KEYWORDS: train railroading warning mother wreck death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Oct 23, 1890 - Death of engineer George Alley when the FFV train on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was wrecked by a landslide near Hinton, West Virginia
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lyle-ScaldedToDeathByTheSteam, p. 47, "The Brave Engineer" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #255
RECORDINGS:
Carver Boys, "The Brave Engineer" (Paramount 3198, 1930/Broadway 8246 [as Carson Boys], n.d.; rec. 1929)
Roy Harvey & the North Carolina Ramblers, "The Brave Engineer" (Columbia 15174-D, 1927; rec. 1926)

CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wreck on the C & O" [Laws G3] (subject)
NOTES [60 words]: Lyle files this in the same entry as "The Wreck on the C & O," and Roud files them under the same number (probably on this basis), but they are pretty clearly distinct song (this is reported to be to the tune of "The Ship That Never Returned"); I've split them. Nonetheless it is possible that some of the listed recordings of that song are actually this. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.3
File: LySc047

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.