First West Bound Train
by James Hyland
1869, I’m driving this train
It’s the first time one cut west through the plains
Hanging out the side engine one sixteen
steaming down the line, moving fast and mean
Time’s gonna change
at the pace of a train
The west ain’t gonna be the same
We’re gonna carry cattle, gonna carry gold
We’ll carry all the people railcars can hold
Brakemen let it up, and I put it down
The only time we stop's when we hit a western town
The rhythm and the rhyme’s
Further west each time
There’s no turnin’ round
Just an end of the line on a
Train
First west bound train
Full steam ahead, across the great divide
the west and the new world, they’re destined to collide
Got my hand on the throttle, got the heat in high gear
Got a front row seat to how we got from there to here
I love the night rides
Sippin’ on bock beer
I’m a one locomotive
Steam powered pioneer
First time steel’s rolled through hostile land
Got a 2 man shotgun crew on the front stand
2 in every car, 3 on the rear
You make an awful easy target screaming through the frontier
If we land in San Fran
They’ll be pourin’ champagne
But first we gotta prove we can move across the land in this
Train
First west bound train
I give the sign, we’re slowing down
Another stop, another town
Gonna fill up the water, fill up the wood
Fill the jugs with any shine the locals say we should
Check the trim
Let the whistle roar
Check my pocket watch
It’s all aboard
Full steam ahead, let’s see this baby climb
We’ll chase the river raging through the mountainside
Hear the train echo off the lands’ grandest schemes
It’s the first time the west heard man-made machines
Got my hand on the throttle,
heat’s in high gear
Steel’s rolling through
no matter what’s already here, it’s a
Train
First west bound train