Category:Trains

From WWR

Why are there so many songs about Trains on Whole Wheat Radio? It actually has to do with the technology of the steam engine. Unlike your car, the steam engine is an external combustion engine. This means the fuel is not burned inside the actual "engine", the cylinders that do the work. In the case of a steam locomotive, the fuel is burned in the firebox, a part of the boiler.

Fuel is fed into the firebox, either manually or mechanically, at the proper rate to keep the fire hot enough to boil water and make steam to feed the cylinders. As the cylinders exhaust the steam through the stack, it creates a partial vacuum in the forward part of the boiler, which draws the hot gasses from the firebox through long tubes inside the boiler. The tubes then heat the water in the boiler, making the steam, which is metered through the throttle, down another long tube (the dry pipe) and into the steam chests. Valves controlled by the motion of all those levers you can see on the locomotive's wheels meter the steam into each end of the cylinder at the proper time to drive the pistons.

Because the fuel is burned externally to the cylinders, each stroke of the piston can be used to make power in the engine (unlike just one of every four in your car). As steam enters the front of the cylinder, it expands inside and forces the piston backwards, turning the axles through a crank. As the piston moves backwards, it expels the steam that was expanded in the last stroke, moving the piston forward. As it nears the back of the cylinder, the valve cuts off the steam to the front of the piston, and allows it to enter the back of the cylinder...slowing the stroke of the piston, and reversing it to make another power stroke, now toward the front. Again, it expels the used steam from the last stroke as it goes.

Okay, that's all great, but what in the world does it have to do with songs on WWR? Well, the typical steam locomotive has one cylinder on each side. It has two exhaust strokes out of each cylinder with each revolution of the wheels...that's four exhaust strokes per revolution. Steam engines operate in 4/4 time! They are a realatively simple technology, all levers and wheels and valves and nuts and bolts. To work at peak efficiency, the valves must be adjusted to admit steam at exactly the right part of the stroke, and for exactly the right length of time. But they will work tolerably well if they are a little bit out of adjustment, and they very often are. That will make one exhaust stroke maybe a little longer, or a little more forceful than the other three. That makes a beat! If you can get to a tourist railroad that still runs a steam engine, listen carefully...our ears naturally pick up that 4/4 time, and put that out of adjustment valve on the third stoke... a natural back beat.

Trains in the Northeast tended to move pretty fast between the large population centers. Transcontinental trains, too...they had a long ways to go, and not much between here and there. But trains in the south were more often serving agriculture, and weren't in as much of a hurry...even the passenger trains. Railroads were built lighter, since they didn't need to operate at high speeds, and trains tended to rock back and forth on the lightly ballasted track. Now imagine you are done with a long day working in the field, sitting on your porch, guitar or banjo on your lap, watching a steam locomotive chuffing along the track across the field...rocking slowly back and forth as it goes. Chuff-chuff-CHUFF-chuff, chuff-chuff-CHUF-chuff....whistling as it nears the road crossing. One theory is that the blues were born in just such an environment. Drive it a little harder, and faster, and you've got rock-and-roll. Or try it with a mandolin and a banjo, and you've got bluegrass. The harmonica is a natural to simulate a train whistle.

Listen to some of the great train songs, and you can actually hear the train, shuffling down the track.

"Who doesn't love that train shuffle beat?, that rhythm of the rails is so primal. One of the first country songs to penetrate my thick skull was Roger Miller's 'Train of Life'. --Scott Miller, of Scott Miller and the Commonwealth.

Request a music show of Trains music

#	Song	Artist	Image	Album	Length	Played count	Last Played	Overall	You	Tags	Single Request
1	The Interchange	Artese 'n Toad		They Don't Write Songs About Trains Anymore	3:30	8	Dec 3rd, 2007	4 votes	You have to login to give your opinion about songs.	Folk / Trains / Railroads
2	Folsom Prison Blues	Ronnie Jay Wheeler		All Over The Map	2:43	6	Apr 25th, 2008	4 votes	You have to login to give your opinion about songs.	Acoustic / Band / Johnny cash / Harmonica / Bluegrass / Cover / Way fast / Judges / Railroads / Trains
3	Morning Train	David Francey		The Waking Hour	2:28	8	Jun 19th, 2008	7 votes	You have to login to give your opinion about songs.	Acoustic / Trains
				Total Time	8:41

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