Railroad Cars are Coming, The

DESCRIPTION: "The great Pacific railway, For California hail! Bring on the locomotive, Lay down the iron rail; Across the rolling prairies By steam we're bound to go." Even prairie dogs wag their tails and antelope stand at attention when the trains come.
AUTHOR: Robert Snell? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag)
KEYWORDS: railroading train nonballad animal
FOUND IN: US(MW,Ro)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 358-359, "The Railroad Cars are Coming" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Cheney-MormonSongs, pp. 96-97, "The Railroad Cars, They're Coming" (1 text)
Greenway-FolkloreOfTheGreatWest, p. 271, "The Railroad Cars, They're Coming" (1 short text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 67-68, "The Railroad Cars Are Coming" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, p. 603, "The Railroad Cars, They're Coming" (1 short text)
ST San358 (Full)
Roud #10812
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Echo Canyon Song"
NOTES [273 words]: The first Transcontinental Railroad in the Unitd States was the Central Pacific, completed in Utah in May 1860. This line went from Chicago to Omaha through Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada on its way to Sacramento and San Francisco.
But it cannot be the line referred to, since the song describes travelling through New Mexico. (At least in Sandburg's version; Cheney's and Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest's does not mention New Mexico. Perhaps the Mormon version is original and Sandburg's version was badly adapted to another railroad?)
Two major transcontinental lines went through the southern states. The Southern Pacific went from New Orleans though Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso to Los Angeles. This might be the reference, but this line barely touches New Mexico.
The Santa Fe railroad (or the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe) fits much better: Starting from Saint Louis as the Missouri Pacific, it passed through Kansas City and then headed west and south through Kansas, a corner of Colorado, and New Mexico, through Santa Fe and Albuquerque to Los Angeles.
The Santa Fe line makes sense in another way: It replaced the old Santa Fe trail, making its opening welcome even to the animals (since they didn't have to travel it). The line reached Santa Fe in 1880, meaning that its construction was still part of living memory when Sandburg was collecting songs.
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest credits this to Robert Snell but gives no further information about him. However, the version reprinted by Lingenfelter et al was printed in 1933, AFTER Sandburg. So I'm not sure I trust the attribution. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: San358

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