MUSIC AND RAILWAYS

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Most recently updated: 16th May  2008

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chronological, annotated list of pieces of music influenced by railways:

1820/1830/1840/1850/1860/1870/1880/1890/1900/1910/1920/1930/1940/
1950/1960/1970/1980/1990/2000

Appendix: music not included in the main list because date not known

Discography: collections of recorded railway music

Web-based resources

Bibliography

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Introduction

A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine's clack again.....

Robert Browning. Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day [1850]

The introduction and development of railways has contributed immeasurably to our soundscape; it is not surprising that railways have inspired many responses from composers and musicians. The Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer devotes a short but fascinating section of his marvellous book The Tuning of the World (1980) to railways, noting that - despite Wagner's dislike of them - 'Of all the sounds of the Industrial Revolution, those of trains seem across time to have taken on the most attractive sentimental associations'. What is perhaps surprising is that certain composers known to have been fascinated by railways never explicitly evoked them in their music; they include Dvorak, Bruckner, and Hindemith. Of course, listeners who know of their interest in railways are prone to hear trains in their music - hence the inclusion in this list of Bruckner's 4th Symphony (1874) and Dvorak's Serenade for Wind Instruments (1878) and Humoresque no. 7 in G Flat (1894). In August 1829 Mendelssohn persuaded a foreman to let him ride on a free-wheeling vehicle on a downhill gradient through a tunnel to the Liverpool docks, on the as-yet-unopened Liverpool and Manchester Railway. He described the experience of racing faster and faster into utter darkness as 'agony for the nerves!'

Elsewhere in his book, Murray Schafer notes that a colleague, Howard Broomfield, 'believes that railroads had an important influence on the development of jazz... Blue notes can be heard in the wail of the old steam whistles... Also the similarity between the clickety-clack of wheels over track ends and the drumbeats...of jazz and rock music is too obvious to go unnoticed, at least in the clever tape mixes Broomfield has made to prove the point'. Max Haymes has no doubt that sounds of railways can be heard in the piano or guitar accompanying many early blues, and that barrelhouse piano in particular 'imitated the sound or 'click' of the earlier railroads as well as capturing the sudden contrasting sounds that a train made when travelling over a trestle bridge, going through a tunnel, passing a busy marshalling yard full of freight cars, or rolling over a myriad of crossovers and switches' [see Bibliography]. The relentless rhythms of bluegrass seem to echo the sound of the train even where no such echo is intended; Charles Wolfe has argued that bluegrass, in its very nature, 'resembles the unique sound of the train: the clattering of the drivers echoed by the rolling banjo; the straight, true, hard steel rails resembling the empowering drive of the rhythm guitar; and the wail of the whistle calling up the long, edgy strokes of the low bow fiddle' (booklet accompanying Bluegrass Express album). The presence of railways in jazz, rock, folk and popular idioms is noteworthy indeed, and is only partially accounted for by the sounds of railways; apart from the sounds they make, railways have impacted on human lives in countless ways which have been given expression in innumerable texts and songs, and on stage and screen.

These Web pages provide a chronological list of pieces of music inspired by or evoking railways, with a note of available recordings known to the compiler. Bearing in mind the hundreds of songs, some of them performed by different singers at different times, the piano pieces, the many railroad-inspired jazz compositions and improvisations, passages of film music, and numerous pieces of 'light' music, all of which in one way or another are related to railways, this cannot ever be a comprehensive list. My aim is to include every significant work in the 'classical' genre, and works in other genres, which respond to the sounds of railways - and I have to acknowledge that hundreds of songs include echoes and imitations of railway sounds (cries of 'All Aboard', bells and whistles, and so forth), in many cases stereotyped and unimaginative, in other cases startling and enthralling. Because this list is chronological, I will naturally favour items which can be dated rather than those which cannot. At the end of the chronological list I have included another list, of pieces which I would like to include in the chronological list but cannot because I cannot date them.

If you know of works, recordings, or relevant information which should be included, please let me know: Philip Pacey, at phil@philpacey.co.uk

Instead of scrolling down the list, you can if you prefer jump to a particular decade by clicking on one of the following:

1820/1830/1840/1850/1860/1870/1880/1890/1900/1910/1920/1930/1940/
1950/1960/1970/1980/1990/2000

1828
Meineke, C.
The Rail Road, for piano

Meineke, C.
Rail Road March (for the 4th of July), for piano
written to mark the first passenger train in the U.S.A.

1830s

In his book Railways and the Victorian Imagination (1999), Michael Freeman refers to and illustrates a number of mostly undated items of sheet music. These include Characteristic Rondo for pianoforte by S. Bryan, which Freeman suggests was published 'probably in the 1830s'. Its cover illustrates the viaduct over the Sankey valley on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, while the score 'is annotated to indicate the various stages in the journey from Manchester to Liverpool; the tempo is continously adjusted, according to assumed changes in speed. A crescendo is reached with the passing of the train through the Liverpool tunnel, echoing the striking combination of fear and fascination that such subterranean experiences brought to early railway travellers'.

1830
Railways Now Are All the Go with Steam, Steam, Steam
A song said to have been sung in the Vauxhall Gardens in 1930. [Information from Philip Scowcroft].

1831
The Railroad -
a pantomime with music [composer unknown], staged at the Theatre Royal, Doncaster
[ Information from Philip Scowcroft].

1835
Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, to the tune of 'Patrick O'Neal'
Broadside ballad. Although undated, this ballad celebrates the opening of the railway in 1835. A copy can be found on the Bodleian Broadside Ballads Web site. A number of other railway-related ballads can also be found on this Web site; although not accompanied by music, some indicate (like this one) a popular tune of the day to which they are to be sung.

The music invariably played at the opening of new railways in England was 'See the Conquering Hero Comes', from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus. [Source: George Dow. Great Central volume 1 (1985)].

1836
Strauss, Johann I
Eisenbahn-Lust - waltz ['Railway delight'], op.89
Beginning and ending with steam locomotive sounds, this piece celebrates the building of the first public railway line out of Vienna, to Breclav.
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

1838
Fahrbach, Philipp
Locomotiv - galop, op.31
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

Gungl, Joseph
Eisenbahn-Dampf - galop, op. 5
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

1839
Fine new sang [sic} of the battle fought on the Shields railway between a town councillor and an architect and the poliss [sic], to the tune of 'Cappy's the dog'.
Broadside ballad. A copy can be found on the Bodleian Broadside Ballads Web site.

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1840
Glinka
'Poputnaya pesnya' ('Travelling song'), from A Farewell to St Petersburg
These songs are settings of texts by Glinka's friend Nestor Kukol'nik. The 'Travelling song' is described in the New Grove Dictionary of Music as 'probably the first ever railway song':
'The steam rises, the engine whistles and roars.
On the platform, people laugh,
shout and hustle.
The crowd is full of joy.
The train shoots forward and speeds through the countryside,
freer than the wind....'
Opus OPS 30-227

1844
Alkan, Charles-Valentin
Le Chemin de Fer op. 27
A vigorous piano piece, lasting nearly five minutes, evoking the sounds of a railway journey.
Naxos 8.553434

Gung'l, Jos [sic]
Railroad Steam Engine Galop
Joseph Gungl (see also 1838, above) was a Hungarian-born bandmaster and composer whose music anticipated but was eclipsed by that of the Strausses. This piano piece, composed and dedicated to the Misses Wilde of Thornhill, near Maidstone, in England; was published by R. Cocks and Co., London. An announcement from the publisher on the back cover of the sheet music, dated 22nd July 1844, warns of an impending removal to other premises in October. In addition to the piano, the music includes a stave for 'Locomotive Steam-Engine' containing a repeated C, an octave above middle C, on each of the two beats in a bar, with the instruction 'The noise which the smoke makes in the chimney of the locomotive steam engine, may be very naturally imitated by clapping the door of the tunnel of a stove'. Eight bars from the end of the piece the pianist is instructed as follows: 'In order to represent the stopping of the steam engine, the time must be gradually slower from this mark to the end'. This piece was subsequently published in America (Gungl toured the USA in 1849): the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection includes an undated edition of the sheet music, published in Philadelphia, with a lithograph illustration of the railroad depot at Philadelphia on the cover, and a copy of Gungl's Railroad Galop, arranged by H.M.Bosworth, published in San Francisco in 1869.(Many thanks to Jill Murdoch for drawing my attention to the original edition).

Labitzky, [Joseph?]
3 Railroad Polkas and The Prague and Vienna Railroad Polkas
These items, also published by R. Cocks of London, are advertised on the back cover of the Railroad Steam Engine Galop noted above. The date of publication cannot therefore be later than 1844; it could possibly be earlier.

1846
Berlioz, Hector
‘Le Chant des Chemins de Fer’ from Feuillets d'Album op. 19 no. 3, for tenor, SATN and orchestra.
Text by Jules Janin.
This piece was commissioned in 1846 by the Chemin de Fer du Nord to mark the opening of the railway line from Paris to Lille; it was first performed at Lille on 14th June, 1846. The music has been described as 'decidely laboured, partly because it was written for outdoor performance...'. In Britain the work was performed at the Royal Albert Hall at a concert to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, in September 1975, and I'm told it was also performed at the ceremony launching the Eurostar services from London to Paris and to Lille in 1994, along with a newly commissioned work by Paul Patterson (see 1994, below). The Chant des Chemins de Fer acclaims the building of the railway in words that could apply equally to almost any comparable achievement. (C'est la grand jour... Soldats de la paix, c'est votre victoire...'). Only a passing reference to mountains conquered and rivers crossed hints at the nature of the enterprise. The vocal score was published in 1850 and the full score in 1903.
EMI Classics [2] 557499-2
An MP3 file, accompanied by an informative introduction and the text of the libretto, can be found at http://hectorberlioz.blogspot.com

Bruton, James
Railway Mania
A music hall song

1848
Balfour, Charles
'The Iron Horse'
The words of this song were written by Charles Balfour, stationmaster at Glencarse, Scotland, and sung to the tune 'The Piper of Dundee'. Recorded by Ewan MacColl on his album Second Shift.

Lumbye, Hans Christian
Københavns Jernbane Damp Galop [Copenhagen Railway Steam Galop]
Written to celebrate the opening of the Copenhagen-Roskilde railway. Incorporates sounds of whistling and the calling of the guard.
DKPCD9089
CHAN9209
8 223470
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

1853
W. H. [identified by Richard Stewardson as J.W.Herbert - thanks, Richard]
Canadian Grand Trunk Railway Galop

1854
Allen, George N.
The Underground Rail Car! or, Song of the Fugitive
For solo voice, SATB and piano.
An 'underground railroad' was a term for a route used by escaping slaves to reach Canada. The cover of this piece of sheet music depicts a real (overground) steam train. A copy can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection.

W. H. [presumably J. W. Herbert; see also item listed at1853 above]
St Lawrence Tubular Bridge Mazurka Polka

1855
Paling, William H.
The Sydney Railway Waltz
Wriiten for the opening of the Sydney to Parramatta railway.
Recorded on Trains of Treasure [see Discography]

Underground Railroad March, arranged for piano by Fr. H.
As in the item above, the word 'Railroad' is used metaphorically and symbolically to represent an escape route, from one safe house to another, but once again a real train is depicted on the cover. A copy can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection.

1856
Lindblad, Otto
Malmö Järnbanesång, for male voice choir.
Written for the inauguration of the Lund-Malmö railway.

[1857-68]
Rossini
'Un Petit Train de Plaisir. Comique-Imitatif'; from Péchés de Vieillesse, 6. Album pour les enfants dégourdis - for piano
Rossini detested railways. In this piece the excursion train crashes soon after departure, and the souls of the victims make their way to heaven. Rossini annotated the score with a series of subtitles and comments.
Several recordings, including MDG 618 1108-2
Sheet music: Cinque pezzi per pianoforte. Milan: Ricordi, 1992

1858
Strauss, Johann (Baptist) II
Spiralen Walzer, op. 209
Written for an annual railwaymen's ball in Vienna, this waltz celebrates the use of spiral tunnels to gain altitude on trans-Alpine lines.
Marco Polo 8 223237, 8 223471

The Lyon-Geneve railway was inaugurated on 16th March 1858 with a ceremony at Bourg. A blessing of the locomotives was followed by a 'magnificent collation' during which the town choral society is said to have performed a specially composed cantata. [Information from Glyn Williams]

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1862
Hoyer, Franz
Jernban - galop
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

1864
Hoyer, Franz
Helsingfors-Tavastehus Jernbane-Galopp
Written for the inauguration of Finland's first railway.

Strauss, Johann (Baptist) II
Vergnügungszug - polka galop op. 281
Translates into French as 'Trains du Plaisir', that is, excursion trains, of which the destinations might be concealed until the last minute. For Rossini's take on 'Trains du Plaisir' see 1857[-68] above.
Many recordings

1865
Macfarren, George
Song of the Railroads - part-song
(Macfarren later became Principal of the Royal Academy of Music)

1866
Clifton, Harry
Railway Bell(e)
A music hall song

Meyer, Jean
Jernvägs - galop, for orchestra
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

Offenbach, Jacques
La Vie Parisienne [operetta]
The opening scene, 'Nous sommes employés de la ligne de l'Ouest', set outside the Paris terminus, lists 22 destinations on this railway. Klaus Matzka, to whom I am grateful for drawing this work to my attention, notes that today it would be necessary to utilise 3 termini to reach all 22 places. Unfortunately, much of this is lost in Phil Park's English version:

This station on the lively Left Bank of the Seine
is where you see Parisians returning by train...
This terminus is 'PARIS' from all stations west
Saint Valéry, Saint Malo, Le Touquet, and Brest...

1868
Briggs, George A.
D.O.R.A. Railroad Polonaise, for piano and sandpaper (the latter to be used to simulate the sound of a train)

1869
Morales, Melesio
La Locomotiva
Performed at the opening of the Mexico-Puebla railway on 16th November 1869, this piece is described in the New Grove Dictionary of Music as 'an early attempt at an orchestral interpretation of the sound of a locomotive'.

Strauss, Eduard
Bahn Frei - polka galop, op. 45
Several recordings available

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1870
Martyn, F.L.
Standing on the platform
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Rowe, Henry S.
Union Pacific Grand March for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Work, Henry G. Continental Railroad Chorus. crossing the Grand Sierras
for SATB quartet, SATB chorus and piano duet.
A copy can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection.

1871
Dibble, Frank D.
Peninsular railway march for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Grahl, Traugott
Greetings from Sweden to Norway - waltz
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

The Launceston and Deloraine Railway Line
Written to mark the opening of this railway line in Australia, but sung to an American tune, 'Marching through Georgia'. [Information from Brian Dunnett. See also the book When we rode the rails, by P. Adam-Smith [Sydney: Landsdowne, 1983]

Strauss, Eduard
Mit Dampf - polka schnell, op. 70
Marco Polo 8 223470
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

Sullivan, Arthur
Thespis - comic opera
The music of this first comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan is almost entirely lost. However, the opera included a song about a magnanimous railway chairman:

Each Christmas Day he gave each stoker
A silver shovel and a golden poker,
He'd button-hole flowers for the ticket sorters
And rich Bath buns for the outside porters.
He'd mount the clerks on his first-class hunters
And he built little villas for the roadside shunters...

The song was apparently accompanied by a railway bell, a whistle, and other sound effects imitating a train in motion. (Less substantial references to railways can be found in other works by Gilbert and Sullivan).

1872
Mack, E.
Pullman car (Sunbeams) for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Richter, Charles J.
Railroad Galop for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Snowed-in Galop
Sheet music in the 19th century California music collection, with a lithograph cover illustration of a snowbound Union Pacific Railroad train.

1873
Chester, George D.
The Railroad accident at Richmond Switch, R.I.
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University

Drumheller, C.
Iron Mountain Railroad for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Stephenson, T.
The Gospel Railroad
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

1874
Bruckner
Symphony no. 4 ('Romantic')
I've heard two versions of this story. According to one, the young Bruckner had a friend whose father was the chief engineer of Austrian Railways and who let the boys ride on the footplate. The chief engineer bought some American heavy freight locomotives with chime whistles. Bruckner lived within earshot of an incline where one of these locomotives was attached at the rear to bank trains hauled by locomotives of the same type. The locomotives used to whistle to each other to synchronize their efforts, and the horn calls at the beginning of the 4th Symphony recall this dialogue. In another version of this story, Bruckner was friendly with the locomotive engineer on the Sudbahn at Wiener Neustadt and occasionally accompanied him on test runs of new locomotives on the Semmering line. The horns echo the whistles of trains on the Semmering line.
Many recordings

Campiani, Lucio
La Ferrovia Mantova-Modena (piano duet)
A waltz in the manner of Strauss, for four hands at one piano; published in Milan [undated, but thought to date from 1874]

Diethelm
The Patent Rail-way Punch
4 part song with piano accompaniment. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Hassler, Simon A.
Rail Road Galop for piano and percussion
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Strauss, Eduard
Ohne Aufenthalt Polka Schnell ['The Non-Stop Fast Polka'], op. 112
Performed at, and written for (?), the annual Austrian railwaymens' ball in Vienna, 25th January 1874. Incorporates the blowing of whistles and clanging of bells as the band gradually gathers speed.
Marco Polo 8 223470/1

1876
Goolman, J.N.
C. B. & Q. Waltz for piano
The C. B. & Q. was the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

1877
Clark, M.B.
Lightning Pleasure Train, for piano
Sheet music in the 19th century California music collection. A 'descriptive piece', evoking a train leaving the depot [station], accelerating, whistling, braking, running through a wood, over a bridge, homeward bound, and entering a depot. The cover carries a woodcut illustration of a Union Pacific Railroad train.

Hickman, Clara A.
The Junction Railway for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

1878
Devere, Sam
Riding on the elevated railroad
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Dvorak
Serenade for Wind Instruments, op.44
Jochem Valkenburg suggests that the 3rd movement 'sounds very much like the speeding up of a steam train'. What do you think?
ASV (possibly no longer available).

Musgrave, Fred
Prisoner at the Bar, musical
An 'opera buffet'; set in a railway refreshment room.

1879
Foster, S.C. [Stephen]
Old folks at home
'Way down upon de Swanee ribber...'
Stephen Foster's well known song actually dates from 1851, but this sheet music edition is of interest because it was published as a souvenir of the Swanee River route of the Georgia, Southern and Florida Railroad. A copy is in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Joseph. John.
New York Elevated Railroad Galop for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Kelley, T.B.
Riding on the Elevated Railroad
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Over 300 items of railway-related 19th and 20th century sheet music, mostly songs or piano pieces, can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection. Click on 'Search the Collection, and enter 'Railroad' in the 'Search for' box.

Items of British sheet music, including piano music and songs, are noted in
the second supplement [and perhaps the first?] of [Ottley's] [A] Bibliography of British Railway History [1966, 2nd ed. 1983, supplement 1988, 2nd supplement 1998], in Section P 'Humour'.

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Denza, Luigi.
Funiculi, funiculà - a song to commemorate the opening of the funicular railway to the summit of Vesuvius; it was adapted by Strauss, orchestrated by Rimsky Korsakov, given jazz/big band treatment by the Dorsey brothers and a rock interpretation by The Grateful Dead in 1977.
Many recordings

'Anyone maintaining that Donizetti is better than Verdi shall be dressed as a woman, mocked openly before the battery and its guns, shall wear a cooking pot upon his head, and, in extreme cases, shall be required to sing 'Funiculi Funicula' and any other songs about railways that Captain Antonio Corelli shall from time to time see fit to determine'. [Louise de Bernières: Captain Corelli's Mandolin].

1881
Marenco, Romvaldo
Music for Excelsior, a spectacle devised and choreographed by Luigi Manzotti.
Manzotti's shows have been described as 'not ballets...but a succession of related episodes expressed in mime'. Excelsior, a celebration of the progress of technology, comprised 12 scenes 'full of scenic tricks'; a steam train crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in scene 4, and scenes 9 and 10 feature the construction of the Mont Cenis tunnel. The music was 'largely made up of mazurkas, marches, etc'. Manzotti's creations were very popular in their day; improbably, Excelsior was revived in 1967, and again at La Scala Milan in 1975, 1976, and 1977, and again in 2002.
Rai Trade/TDK DVD [a recording of the 2002 production].

Mullaly, W.S.
The Railroad Conductors
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

1882
Ortín , Simón
Simón Ortín, chapel master of the cathedral at Tarazona, composed a symponic work in six movements to commemorate the opening of the narrow gauge railway from Tudela (Navarra) to Tarazona (Zaragoza); the score and most of the instrumental parts survive in the cathedral archive. The work evokes a journey on the line, from Tudela, where the train sets off with cries of 'All aboard', bells and whistles, with a stop at an intervening station where a newspaper seller is heard, finally arriving at Tarazona.The piece is described in detail by Pedro Calahorra, in an article 'Un Viaje musico-ferroviario', in La Musica en la Espana del siglo XIX/Revista de musicologia vol.14 no. 1-2 1991 p.273-278. [I am indebted to my colleague Ian Sheridan for a translation of this article].

Anti-Monopoly War Song
Sheet music in the 19th century California music collection. Written for the Anti-Monopoly Party of California. 'Lo! the car of Juggernaut Lo! the ruin it hath wrought/As it moves o'er hill and dale, Riding on the iron rail...'

1883
Eberhard, E.
Franklin-Avenue Railroad Galop for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

Knight Templars Grand Entree March
Sheet music in the 19th century California music collection. A lithographed illustration on the back cover depicts a train passing through a tunnel beneath another train at 'The Loop', Tehachapi Pass, on the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Sargent, Clarence J.
Central Vermont Railroad: Grand March for piano
Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

1885
Railroad Glee
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 collection

1886
Strauss, Richard
Aus Italien, symphonic fantasy op. 16
No, this is not railway music! It is included because in it Strauss used the tune 'Funiculi funicula' (1880, above) , imagining it to be a folksong until he was sued by its composer, Luigi Denza

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1890
Ziehrer, Carl Michael
Nachtschwalbe op. 417
Marco Polo 8 223470/1 1892
Oh! Mr Porter
A music hall song

1893
The Signalman on the Line
A music hall song

1894
Dvorak
Humoresque no.7 in B Flat, for piano
It has been suggested that the dotted rhythm of this celebrated piece may have had its origins in the 'clackety-clack' of train wheels on rail joints.
Many recordings, including HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

1895
Daddy's on the Engine
A music hall song

Davis, Gussie L.
In the Baggage-coach Ahead
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

1896 [or 1898?]
French, Percy
Are ye right there, Michael...?
A celebrated comic song which originated with an occasion when Percy French was late for a concert at Kilkee, his train from Dublin having been seriously delayed. He subsequently sued the West Clare Railway Company for 'loss of earnings' and was awarded £10. (Thanks to my colleague Aidan Turner-Bishop for this information).

1897
Joplin, Scott
The [Great] Crush Collision March, for piano
An early piece by Scott Joplin, preceding the piano rags for which he became so well known. On September 15th 1896 William George Crush, general passenger agent with the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, staged a spectacular head-on collision between two locomotives at Temple, near Waco, Texas. More than 50,000 spectators, possibly including Scott Joplin, witnessed the event. Tragically, three people were killed.

1898
Drefu, Max
At the sound of the signal bell
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

1899
'The Fast Mail'
A song commissioned by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad company to promote its express train which ran between New York and Chicago.

Sibelius, Jean
'Herää, Suomi!', from Press Celebrations Music.
Written for the 'Press Celebrations' of November, 1899 - a mass protest against Russian control of the Finnish press - the climax of this work is 'Herää, Suomi!' [Finland Awake!], which was to become 'Finlandia'. This version is said to incorporate evocations of the sound of a steam train.
Ondine ODE 913-2

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c.1900-1910
Desdumes, Mamie
2.19 Blues
Written by Mamie Desdumes in New Orleans, versions of this blues were performed (and recorded?) by Louis Armstrong, and by Jelly Roll Morton in 1938.
'Two nineteen took my baby away,/Two seventeen bring her back someday'.

1900
Toler, J. Hoyt
Up Broadway for piano
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

1901
Grainger, Percy
Train music
Inspired by a noisy and uncomfortable train journey from Genoa to San Remo in Italy. Grainger set out to evoke the sounds and experience of the journey, writing for a vast ensemble of some 150 instruments. The project has been described as 'an experiment in metre which both anticipated and surpassed the rhythmic complexity of Stravinsky's Le Scare du Printemps (1913)'. The task proved too much for him, and although he tinkered with it on and off through the rest of his life, the work was never completed. A simplified piano version of the opening dates from 5th June 1957. Subsequently a fragment, lasting some one and a half minutes, was prepared for standard symphony orchestra by Eldon Rathburn.
Nimbus NI1767 (piano version)
EMI 7243 5 56412 29 (orchestral version)

1902
Schlief, Lucy A.
Does this railroad lead to heaven?
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Sousa, John Philip
Looking Upward Suite
This piece for concert band was written while Sousa was travelling on a train; my informant, Deana Wagoner, tells me that the train can be heard in the 3rd movement, 'Mars and Venus', very clearly. Although neglected until recently, this suite is considered to be Sousa's most serious work.
Naxos 8559058

Thornton, Geo. W.
Please Sir, Don't Ask Me Again: A Scene from the Drama of Life
''Twas at the depot of a city waiting for a train...'
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

1903
Sundgren, F.V.
Fästmarsch vid invigningen af Riksgränsbana 1903.
A march to mark the inauguration of the railway from Kiruna (norther Sweden) to the Norwegian port of Narvik, used principally for carrying iron ore.

It was in 1903 that W.C.Handy, while waiting for a train at Tutwiler (near Clarksdale) in the early hours of the morning, was joined by a poorly dressed man with a battered guitar who sang 'I'm goin where the Southern cross the Dog...'. The singer explained that 'the Dog' was 'the ol Yellow Dog line, better known as the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley. It cross the Southern down here round Moorhead. And I've made me a song about that - an old railroad song'. Alan Lomax, who tells this story in his book The Land Where the Blues Began adds: 'A new era had just begun, and Handy had it in his notebook, the era of the railroad blues'. Lomax's book has a section called 'Lonesome Whistles' which recalls work songs sung by gangs of labourers building railroads. (None of the songs are dated).

1904
Browne, Raymond A. and Theodore F. Morse
The Little girl who went to town
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

c.1906
Alstyne, Egbert van
I'm Going Right Back to Chicago
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

I've Never Lost My Last Train Yet
A music hall song

Tillman, Charlie D.
The Railroad song
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

1907
Massenet, Jules
La Marche PLM
A short piece for military band and voices, composed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the PLM.

1908
Bristow, Frank L.
'Riding on the Rail', from 6 Little Pieces for the Pianoforte.
Published by Theodore Presser (Philadelphia)

Fall, Leo. Die Geschiedene Frau/The Girl in the Sleeping Saloon - operetta
The plot turns on an incident on a Paris-Nice express.

Walker, W. Raymond
I'm Going Back, Back to Kentucky Where I Was Born
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

1909
Berlin, Irving, Geo.Whiting and Ted Snyder
My Wife's Gone to the Country. Hurrah! Hurrah!
A copy can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection.

Newton, Eddie
Casey Jones: the brave engineer
with words by T. Lawrence Seibert
A ballad which was to become famous, and which was subject to many later interpretations. Was this its first appearance or did it have an earlier history? Newton and Seibert acknowledged that it originated as 'an old Negro song, started by a roundhouse worker named Wallace Saunders'. A copy of Newton and Seibert's first published version (and copies of some later versions) can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection. A radically different text - Casey Jones: the Union Scab - was provided in 1911 by Joe Hill; the lyrics can be found at http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/music/lyrics/en/casey-jones.htm

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1910
Ives, Charles
2nd movement ('Hawthorne') of the Concord Piano Sonata no. 2
Notes left by Ives provide a 'programme' for this piece, which opens with 'magical frost waves' seen 'first on the morning window pane, then on the meadow... then a boy lands on the stoop...and then he gets riding on the railroad - perhaps (but not every day) on the Celestial Railroad.....' See related works by Ives, at 1921-23.
Several recordings.

Lincoln, Harry J.
Sunset Limited: March Two-step for piano
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

Newell, Joseph Edward
'The Mechanical Railway Train' ; no. 1 of 6 Pleasing Pieces for the Pianoforte,
published by Ascheberg, Hopwood & Crew (London)

D'Orvict, Charles and Lucien Del
La Sonnerie d'Alarme
song recorded by Victor Lejal, c.1910
Spef SPMS 2002.

Stanford, Charles Villier
'The Train', op. 119 no. 4
One of the 'Eight Part Songs' for unaccompanied SATB, including the better known 'The Blue Bird', each of which is a setting of a poem by Mary E. Coleridge.
'A green eye, and a red,/In the dark./Thunder, smoke, and a spark./It is there, it is here, flashed by./Whither will the wild thing fly?/It is rushing, tearing thro' the night,/Rending the gloom in its flight./It shattersher silence with shrieks./What is it the wild thing seeks?/Alas! For it hurries away/Them that are fain to stay./It hurries, hurries, hurries away./Hurrah! For it carries home/Lovers and friends that roam./Where are you, Time and Space?/The world is a little place,/Your reign is over and done,/You are one'.

Tourtal, Victor
Le C.A.E. du P-L-M
The P-L-M was the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway.
Song recorded by Mansuelle
Spef SPMS 2002.

1911
Berlin, Irving
When You're in Town in my Home Town
Song. A copy can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection.

Bimbert, Ed
That Railroad Rag
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Boyer, Lucien
Vive l'Express de Normandie
Spef SPMS 2002.

1912
Berlin, Irving
When that Midnight Choo-Choo leaves for Alabam'
Several recordings available, including a 1938 recording by Tommy Dorsey & his Clambake Seven (Living Era CD AJA 5610)

Edwards, Leo
There's Lots of Stations on my Railroad Track
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Hargreaves, W.H.
Watching the Trains Go Out
A music hall song

Il est content le chef de gare
song recorded by Mansuelle to the tune of 'Il était un petit navire'
Spef SPMS 2002.
Emmanuelle Cronier tells me that a version of this song, 'Il est cocu le chef de gare', was sung by French soldiers travelling by train to and from the Front during the First World War.

Jenter, Harry
I'll be Welcome in my Home Town: Good-bye to Bright Lights
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

Kálmán, Emmerich
Der Zigeunerprimas; operetta
Premiered on 10th October 1912 at the Johann Strauss theatre in Vienna, this operetta includes a terzett in which the 'Zigeunerprimas' complains about the 16 hour train journey from Budapest to Paris. [Thanks to Klaus Matzka, who tells me that this journey takes 18 hours today!]
Two CDs available

Serpieri
De Paris à Rouen
Serpieri provided the music for this comic song with words by Bordeaux, recorded by Montel.
Spef SPMS 2002.

Smith, Clay
Ragtime Engineer
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

1913
Abrahams, Maurice
Pullman Porters' Parade
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

Berlin, Irving
You Picked a Bad Day Out to Say Good-bye
Song. A copy can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection.

Bath, Hubert
The Men on the Line. A Descriptive Railway Piece for male voices with Accompaniment...words by W.J.Galloway.
Written for the Great Eastern Railway Choral Society, this was published by Weekes & Co. A copy survives in the British Library.

Fall, Leo
Der Nachtschnellzug [The Night Express]; operetta
The plot concerns an affair in a sleeping car.

Schwartz, Jean
The Honeymoon Express, musical; lyrics by Harold Atteridge, music by Jean Schwartz.
Songs include 'Ragtime Express'

1914
Handy, W.C.
The Yellow Dog Rag: He's Gone where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog
Song.Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

Marshall, Henry I.
Oh, Mister Railroad man, won't you take me back to Alabam'?
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Murray/Marshall
On the 5.15
An early song about commuting by train, included on the CD collection of British railway music 'On the Right Track' (see Discography )

1915
Ives, Charles
'From Hanover Square North' from Orchestral Set no. 2
A musical impression of an incident which occurred when Ives was waiting with other commuters for the homeward train at the Hanover Square station of the New York elevated railway. A hurdy-gurdy was playing ‘In the Sweet By and By’; gradually the song was taken up by railway workers and waiting passengers as an expression of their emotions following the sinking of the Lusitania.
Decca 443776-2

Niemann, Walter
Auf der Eisenbahn, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

1916
Cobb, George L.
I'm goin' to hit the trail for Alabam'
Song. 'Oh, Mister Railroad man, Tell me 'bout the trains that go to Alabam''
Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

1918
Langgaard, Rued
'Train passing by', the 2nd movement of String Quartet no. 2
Langgaard, an innovative and prolific Danish compoer whose work was not appreciated during his lifetime, revised this composition in 1931.
Marco Polo #9302

O'Hare, Christopher
Comic hurry. For lively, rapid comedies; also suitable for railroad trains, races, airplanes, chasing
For orchestra, written to accompany silent films. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

1919
Chambers, Wallace C.
Hold dat Train!
Song. Sheet music in the Library of Congress American Memory Project, Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920 (from Duke University) collection.

L'Employé de l'Ouest-Etat
song recorded by Dranem
Spef SPMS 2002.

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1920
Bliss, Sir Arthur
'In the Tube at Oxford Circus',
one of Bliss's Conversations for a chamber group of strings and woodwind.
Naxos 8.557108

Langey, Otto
Galop-hurry. For races, fire alarms, pursuits, railroad scenes, etc.
For orchestra, written to accompany silent films. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.
Roberts, Luckey

Railroad Blues
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Townsend, Herbert
The Cabman's Railway Yarn [Musical monologue]
Published in London by Reynolds & Co. as no. 219 in the series 'Musical Monologues'.

1921
Gilbert, L.Wolfe
Down yonder
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Indy, Vincent d'
Poème des rivages - symphonic suite, op. 77
Each of the four movements is inspired by a particular stretch of European coastline. The 3rd movement, 'Horizons verts - Falconara', begins and ends with sounds of a train starting and stopping. Falconara is just north of Ancona, on the Adriatic coastline of Italy along which the railway runs close to the sea for some 200 miles.
CDM7 63954-2
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

Poulenc, Francis
''En Chemin de fer', from Promenades, for piano.
CDM7 63946-2, PRCD9080, Prezioso CD 800.062

Schoenberg, Arnold
This must be one of the more unlikely entries in this list! In 1921, Schoenberg arranged three pieces as exercises for teaching purposes, including Luigi Denza's.
Funiculi, funiculà [see above under the year 1880] which he arranged for voice, clarinet, guitar, mandolin, violin, viola, and cello. The three pieces were published by Belmont in 1988. Thanks to Klaus Matzka for telling me about this piece.
Philips 6570 811 (LP), 1981 (deleted)
Erato 063013541 2 (CD), 1996 (deleted)http://www.schoenberg.at/6_archiv/music/works/no_op/compositions_Bearbeitungen_Denza.htm - includes sample

Wehrli, Werner
'In der Eisenbahn', from Von einer Wanderung, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

1921-23
Ives, Charles
The Celestial Railroad, for piano; Symphony no. 4, 2nd movement
Probably written in 1921-23, Ives' piano piece is a tone poem based on the story of the same title by Nathaniel Hawthorne, dating from 1843. In this story, Hawthorne produced a contemporary, satirical version of The Pilgrim's Progess; Hawthorne's dreamer finds that 'a railway has recently been established between [the City of Destruction} and the Celestial City':

The reader of John Bunyan will be glad to know that Christian's old friend Evangelist, who was accustomed to supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the ticket office.

The engine, 'looking...more like a sort of mechanical demon that would hurry us to the infernal regions than a laudable contrivance for smoothing our way to the Celestial City', is driven by Christian's old enemy Apollyon, who has been persuaded to take on the job of chief engineer. The ensuing journey is vividly described.
In writing The Celestial Railroad, Ives probably re-used material from his earlier, lost Hawthorne Concerto, and he used some of the same material again as the basis of the definitive version of the second movement of his Symphony no. 4, which commences 'with a series of train bells played by the solo piano in an ethereal orchestration', and in which an approaching train can certainly be heard. This movement was thought to have been written in the 1910s; in fact, the second movement of the 4th symphony as it existed at that time probably comprised the 'Hawthorne Concerto'. To add to the confusion, some of the same musical motifs, including evocations of riding on the railroad, feature in the second ('Hawthorne') movement of Ives's Concord Piano Sonata no. 2; this movement was written between 1910 and 1911, although the complete sonata was not published until 1921. (For further clarification and analysis, see 'Ives's Celestial Railroad and his Fourth Symphony', by Thomas M. Brodhead, in American Music vol. 12 part 4 1994 pp. 389-424).

1922
Bortkiewicz, Sergej
'Abfahrt des Zuges, from Der kleine Wanderer, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

Honegger, Arthur
Music for the film 'La Roue' (Abel Gance).
Only the overture, lasting less than four minutes, survives from the original score. Gance's silent film is a tragic melodrama story involving a railwayman, his stepdaughter, and his son. In its original version it was an epic some 8-9 hours long; it is thought that Honegger used excerpts from other composers' music as well as the music he composed himself. Evidently his work on this film inspired him to compose Pacific 231 in the following year.. The score contains titles places over all the thematic episodes, relating to the action on the screen: 'Hersan - Locomotive - Sisif - Norma - Locomotive - Le Disque - Signal - Rail - Roues - Les textes'. Honegger's music was later used in the USSR for the 1929 silent film 'The Blue Express', directed by Ilya Trauberg.
Marco Polo 8.223134
[Thanks to Theodore Van Houten for drawing this to my attention].

Walton, William
'Mariner Men', from Facade
Do these few bars count as railway music? Is Edith Sitwell's poem 'about' trains?
'Those trains will run over their tails, if they can,
Snorting and sporting like porpoises...'
Several recordings

1923
Bigeou, Esther
'Panama Limited Blues'
The Panama Limited ran from Chicago to New Orleans (from where it was possible to board ship to Panama).
[A definitive version was recorded by Bukka White in 1930.
JSP-7715 ]

Donaldson, Walter
Seven or Eleven. My Dixie Pair o' Dice
'At the railroad station/Almost ev'ry day...'
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Friend, Cliff
You Said Something When You Said Dixie
'This morning I was feeling great/While waiting at the station gate,/I went to buy my railroad ticket back to my home state'.
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Honegger, Arthur
Pacific 231
The first of the Three Symphonic Movements, this evocation of an express locomotive is so well known that no further description is necessary. ‘231’ is not the number of the locomotive, but is the French convention for denoting the 4-6-2 (‘Pacific’) wheel arrangement of this type of locomotive. Jan Mitry made a film as a visual accompaniment to the music, in 1949.
Decca 448576, Chandos CHAN9176
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187
Prezioso CD 800.062 (version for piano)

Krenek, Ernst
String quartet no. 3
This work was begn on a railway journey between Frankfurt and Berlin in May, 1923. In Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, Walter Willson Cobbett remarks that 'It would not be difficult to find in the four introductory bars an echo of that railway journey'; bearing in mind Krenek's fondness for railways, that is a reasonable supposition. Other railway-related works by Krenek are noted at 1926 and elsewhere in this list.

Maugeri, Francesco
Va' La' Che Vai Bene!
At least one copy of the sheet music of this fox-trot for piano, published in Milan, found its way to America, where it can now be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection

Sir, Otakar
'In der Eisenbahn', from Schulferien, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

1924
Ellington, Duke
Choo Choo (Gotta Hurry Home)

Gershwin, George
Rhapsody in Blue
Responding to an invitation from Paul Whiteman to write a jazz concerto, Gershwin determined to demonstrate the possibilities of the jazz idiom; in his own words, ‘The Rhapsody began as a purpose, not a plan’. He went on to describe its beginnings thus: ‘I worked out a few themes, but just at this time I had to appear in Boston... It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-bang that is so often stimulating to the composer (I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise), that I suddenly heard - even saw on paper - the complete construction of the Rhapsody from beginning to end’. This doesn’t mean that it is a musical description of a railway journey - ‘I heard it as a sort of music kaleidoscope of America’ - but perhaps it merits a place in this list nonetheless. (For  a musical evocation of Gershwin's train journey and the generation of 'Rhapsody in Blue', see the first movement of the 'NYConcerto' by Richard Rijnvos, listed below under the year 2006).
Many recordings.

Hall, Wendell
It looks like rain
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Kastalsky, Alexander
'Poyezd' ['The Railway Train'], for chorus, piano, trumpet and percussion.

Kern, Jerome
Sitting Pretty [musical]
The overture, 'Journey Southward', represents a New York-Florida train journey, and includes the sound of a train whistle. A duet, 'The Enchanted Train', accompanies a ride on the Long Island Railroad.S5 68589-2
[overture only]

Milhaud
Le Train Bleu, op. 84
A ballet for Diaghilev, with a libretto by Cocteau. Strictly speaking this work does not qualify for inclusion here; in Diaghilev's words, 'The first point about Le Train Bleu is that there is no blue train in it. This being the age of speed, it has already reached its destination and disembarked its passengers. These are to be seen on a beach... in front of a casino...'; the ballet invokes the physical, sporting activities (tennis, golf, swimming) of French holidaymakers. The 'train bleu', a fast, luxury train operating between Paris and Deauville, was launched in the previous summer (1923).

1924 [-25]
Krenek, Ernst.
Bluff, Op. 36
Krenek abandoned this work, which contained a railway sequence about a couple travelling from Vienna to Scotland [information from Eldon Rathburn]

1924 [-1937]
Moeran, E.J.
Symphony in G
Although probably not intended by the composer, parts of this symphony made one listener [himself a composer] think of trains. In an interval talk in May 1943, Patrick Hadley wrote:

'Compare, if it is not too far-fetched a fancy, sections of the music you will shortly be hearing through which there is a sense of striving against odds towards ultimate triumph with one of the one-time Norfolk Coast expresses battling its way up Brentwood Bank, headed by one of the lovely old Claud Hamilton engines, with wide open regulator and roaring exhaust'.
[From Paddy - the life and music of Patrick Hadley, by Eric Wetherell].

Hindemith, Paul
Overture to the 'Flying Dutchman' as played at sight by a spa band at 7 o'clock in the morning,
for string quartet
Thought to date from 1925, a period when Hindemith played viola in a string quartet. Hubert Kupper and Frank Wankmuller have compared this piece to Honegger's Pacific 231, maintaining that both represent the sounds of Pacific locomotives, but 'Hindemith's engine has three cylinders, and Honegger's has four'. They also state that 'Whereas Honegger's title announces that his work depicts a locomotive, Hindemith's representation of the express locomotive is more amusing for being hidden' [Kupper and Wankmuller, 'Pacific: Musikalische Umsetzung eines Eisenbahnmythos bei Honegger und Hindemith', in Festschrift Christoph-Hellmut Mahling zum 65. Geburtstag Tutzing: Schneider, 1997 pp. 737-748]. I have to say that I am not convinced - is it possible that this essay is a joke?
WER 6197-2, PRD250 113/5

Robison, Carson and Robert E. Massey
The Runaway Train
Destined to become a children's favourite, but worth listening to in its original form.
Living Era CD AJA 5610 (performed by Vernon Dalhart in 1932)

Smith, Trixie
Railroad Blues
Recorded by Trixie Smith & Her Down Home Syncopators (including Louis Armstrong on cornet) at New York in March 1925. [Am I right to attribute this to Trixie Smith, or is it an interpretation of Luckey Roberts' Railroad Blues of 1920?]

1926
Deshevov, Vladimir Mikhaylovich
Relsï [Les Rails], for piano
Danacord DACOCD399, Erasmus 170, Prezioso CD 800.062

Krenek, Ernst
Jonny Spielt Auf, op. 45
In this opera a train and railway station are said to be depicted on stage for the first time. I'm grateful to Garrett Bowles for this information; he tells me that railroads were an important part of Ernst Krenek's life, and that he often composed while riding on trains. Some other pieces by Krenek reflecting this interest are included elsewhere in this list.
Decca 436 631-2DH2

Weinberg, Mortimer, Charley Marks and Harry Warren
Where do you work-a, John?
The answer is ''On the Delaware Lackawan'.
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

1927
Bailey, DeFord
Pan American Blues
A solo harmonica piece imitating the sound of an express freight train.
CD: Harp Blowers 1926-1929, Document DOCD5164 [also includes Dixie Flyer Blues and John Henry, both performed by DeFord Bailey.
A recording can also be heard at http://www.pbs.org/deford

DeFord Bailey performed two harmonica pieces imitating trains, the other being Dixie Flyer Blues. Both probably dates from much earlier than 1927; as DeFord Bailey explained,

'I worked on that train for years, getting that train down right. I caught that train down just like I wanted in a matter of time. I got the engine part. Then I had to make the whistle. It was about, I expect, seventeen years to get that whistle. It takes time to get this stuff I'm talking about, original. You don't get any original stuff like this in a day or two. It takes years to get it down piece by piece'.

In fact Bailey's interest in the sounds of trains was kindled in childhood. He had to go under a railway trestle bridge on the way to school, and he would wait for a train to go over; then,

'I would get under it, put my hands over my eyes, listen to the sound, and then play that sound all the way to school'.

So why list Pan American Blues under the year 1927?. The radio station WSM's Saturday night Barn Dance followed NBC's 'Musical Appreciation Hour' with conductor Dr. Walter Damrosch. One Saturday night in December 1927 [?1926 according to some sources] 'Musical Appreciation Hour' concluded with a piece imitating a railway locomotive 'by a young composer from Iowa' [who was the composer? what was the piece?].Barn Dance compère George Hay scoffed at this example of contemporary classical music attempting 'realism', and introduced a musician who 'could make his harmonica really sound like a train', DeFord Bailey, whereupon Bailey performed Pan American Blues live. [As a result of a witticism from Hay, the Barn Dance programme changed its name, but that's another story...] [Many thanks to 'Harmonica Buzz', a.k.a. J.T.Sunden, for passing on to me this fascinating story]

Between 24th September and 15th October, the centenary of the Baltimore & Ohio railway was celebrated by an exhibition and a daily pageant, including a number of locomotives, and incorporating The Trail of the Iron Horse: a music-story of the development of inland transport in America, with words by Margaret Talbott Stevens and music arranged by Sigmund Spaeth. For the occasion, Walter Goodwin and Margaret Talbott Stevens wrote a song 'Hail to the Baltimore and Ohio'. The pageant was led by the Baltimore and Ohio Centenary Band playing the tune of this song; they were followed by the first float, 'America', with the Baltimore and Ohio Glee Club singing the song togetherwith 'Star Spangled Banner' and 'I've been Working on the Railroad'.For details of the centenary event: http://www.oldmainline.com/fair.html A copy of 'Hail to the Baltimore and Ohio' can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection

July, F
Le Rapide de 7h02/The Express Train/Scene de voyage.
Written to accompany a silent film, this comprises four movements: Le depart, Le voyage, L'arrivée, Les voyageurs descendent. Published by Editions Chouden, Paris. (Thanks to Theodore Van Houten for drawing this to my attention).

Lewis, Meade Lux
Honky Tonk Train Blues
Composed by Meade Lux Lewis in 1927, and first recorded by him in 1928 (and several times thereafter), this is described by Jim White as 'probably the most evocative piece dedicated to the motion of a train - I have seen a TV clip of it in which the sheet music was superimposed over some freight train shots showing how the different passages illustrate starting up, accelerating, crossing a bridge (with the associated echoes), stopping, etc. This is the ultimate boogie woogie piano solo'.
Columbia 37336

Nix, Rev. A. W.
Black Diamond Express to Hell and The White Flyer to Heaven.
Spoken/sung sermons, with congregational participation, invoking the railroad journey as a metaphor.[Recordings can also be found of Death's Black Train is Coming, declaimed by Rev. J.M. Gates (1924 and 1926), Revs. Hr. and S.J. Worre Tomlin (1926), and the Rev. Ed Claybron (1926/28)]
DOCD-5328

Stolz, Robert
The Blue Train - musical

1928
Benes
This is the Way the Puff Puff Goes
This song, although light-hearted, ominously suggests that already there are fewer trains than there used to be because of competition from buses and cars. Recorded in 1928 (date of composition not known); included on the CD collection of British railway music 'On the Right Track' (see Discography )

Bilbro, D. H. 'Bert'
'C. and N. W. Blues'
An evocation of a train performed on solo harmonica.
CD: Harp Blowers 1926-1929, Document DOCD5164

McAbee, Palmer
McAbee's Railroad Piece
An astonishing virtuoso harmonica solo imitating the sounds of a train, recorded in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S.A.)
Rounder 1143

Thomson, Virgil
Symphony on a Hymn Tune
Composed 1926-28. The second movement ends with what the composer describes as 'a suggestion of a distant railway train'. In fact the wailing whistle could hardly be mistaken for anything else.
TROY 017-2, Naxos 'American Classics' 8.559022

Williams, George 'Bullet'
'Frisco leaving Birmingham'
A blues with a 'scorching train instrumental' (Haymes).
Document DOCD-5150

1929
Bennett, Robert Russell
'The Los Angeles Union Station', in Sights and Sounds: an orchestral entertainment
Naxos 8.559004

Bresgen, Cesar
Gesang des ausgedienten Eisenbahnwaggons im Feld, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

Krenek, Ernst
Reisebuch aus den osterreichischen Alpen ['Travelbook from the Austrian Alps']- song cycle for voice and piano
Krenek wrote both the words and the music for this song cycle. The second song, 'Verkehr', begins thus translated from German):

In the mountains go electric, always higher,
always higher through the woods, over the meadows in their spring colours.
The train glides on the hillside so smoothly and tidily
as if it is part of Nature,
not put to work by men....

The penultimate song, 'Hiemkehr', fleetingly evokes the rail journey back to Vienna. Unfortunately for those of us who are railway enthusiasts, the remainder of the verse concerns itself with the local bus service!
CPO999 203-2

McTell, Blind Willie (originally recorded under the pseudonym 'Blind Sammie')
'Travelin' Blues'
An epic blues, recounting a hobo's journey, and including train sounds in the guitar.
JSP-7711

Milhaud
'Unattentat sur la voie ferré/eisenbahn attentat', from Actualités [film score] Op. 104

Reynders, John
Music for film The Flying Scotsman

Tucker, Bessie
'Katy Blues'
'Katy' is the M. K. & T. (Missouri, Kansas & texas railroad)
Document DOCD 5070

Wallace, Wesley
No. 29
A boogie/barrelhouse piano/vocal in which Wallace describes taking a ride on a freight train from Memphis and imitates the sounds of the train. Thanks to Bill Egan for telling me about this piece.
DOCD-5104

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1930
Harling, Richard and W. Franke Harling
Beyond the Blue Horizon
Written for the film Monte Carlo; adopted as his signature tune and recorded by band leader George Olsen
with his band George Olsen & His Music in the same year.
Victor 22530A
CD ASV 5388
Living Era CD AJA 5610

Patton, Charley and Willie Brown
'Moon Goin' Down'
A steam locomotive is vividly evoked in both words and music of this blues.
JSP-7715

Trumbauer, Frankie and Matty Malneck
Choo Choo
Performed by several British dance bands, including Jack Payne's (complete with train effects).
Included on the CD 'On the Right Track' (see Discography)

Yvain, Maurice
Kadubec; operetta
Includes a song 'Si j'étais Chef de Gare' which Klaus Matzka tells me is sung 'with signalling whistle'.

1931
Hayes, George Gibbons
Timber Line
'When work each day becomes a grind/I long for far off timber line'
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

McTell, Blind Willie
'Broke Down Engine Blues'
JSP-7711

Villa-Lobos, Heitor
'O Trenzhino do Caipira' ['The Little Train of the Caipira'], Bachianas Brasileiras no. 2
This piece for orchestra, the finale (‘Toccata’) of the second Bachianas Brasileiras, was inspired by a ride taken by the composer in 1931 on a train which was transporting berry-pickers and farm labourers between villages in the Brazilian province of Sao Paolo. (‘Caipira’ means ‘yokel’ or ‘rustic’, and is derived from ‘curupira’, a word in the language of the Tupi Indians). Villa-Lobos sketched the composition within an hour of completing the journey; he wrote it for ‘cello and piano, and he and his wife played it through on the same evening. Villa-Lobos arranged Bachianas Brasileiras no. 2 for chamber orchestra in 1938.
EMI CDH7 61015-2
EMI CDC5 55224-2
Naxos 8 550838
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

1932
Armstrong, Louis
'Hobo, you can't ride this train'
Recorded in 1932, but could it be earlier in origin?
Included on 'Hot Trains', Saga 49/066 482-2 [see discography]

Dessau, Paul
'Das Eisenbahnspiel', for childrens' choir, two violins and piano.
A piece which conjhures up a fantastic return trip by rail from Germany to Honolulu!

Donovan, Richard
Smoke and steeel, for orchestra

Ellington, Duke
'Lightnin'
Described by Eddie Lambert as 'the first of Ellington's celebrated train pieces (disregarding the early 'Choo-Choo'). Here the band goes for an easy Pullman ride. The train effects are well integrated into an Ellington medium-tempo stomp...' Brief excerpts are heard at the beginning and end of the film 'Bundle of Blues' (1933). For a perceptive note of the significance of trains to Duke Ellington, see Duke: a portrait of Duke Ellington [1977] by Derek Jewell, pp. 53-57. During the 1930s, the Ellington band travelled across America in two private Pullman railway coaches and a baggage van: 'The train was his sanctuary'.
Living Era CD AJS 2015

Formby, George
On the Wigan Boat Express
Performed by the inimitable Georghe Formby; written by him, Harry Clifford, and Fred E. Cliffe; recorded by George Formby in 1940.
Living Era CD AJA 5610

Ibert
'Le Metro', from Suite Symphonique 'Paris'
In this short piece which opens the suite, we hear a clock strike 8 in the morning, and then the bustling sounds of a Metro train. The suite originated as incidental music, written in 1929, for Jules Romains' play Donogoo-Tonka, set in Paris and South America, staged in 1930. Ibert subsequently used the Parisian material to construct the Suite Symphonique 'Paris' .
Several recordings, including HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

Künnecke, Eduard
Glückliche Reise; operetta
The title song refers to a railway journey and to the four classes of passenger.
Several recordings of the song (but not the entire work).

Rathke, Otto
On a Local Train Journey
Recorded by George Scott-Wood & the International Novelty Orchestra in September 1932.
Living Era CD AJA 5610

Rosenberg, Hilding
'Järnvägsfuga' ['Railway Fugue'], from Resa till Amerika
The ‘Railway Fugue’ is part of a suite in this opera which is concerned with Swedish emigration to America. [Rosenberg's brother Johan was an engine driver].
Although the complete score of the opera has not been published, the fugue has been published as part of a 'Symphonic Suite' derived from the opera [Edition Suecia Ed nr FST 27st] and separately, as 'Järnvägsfuga' [Edition Suecia Ed nr FST 29st]. Recordings include the following:
Intermezzo & Fugue; Symfoniokestern Norrköping, 1994. Fun House CNR 995.020-2
Intermezzo & Fugue; Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, 1967. RCA Victrola VICS 1319; Caprice CAP 1013 (Expo Norr Riks LP 13)
Fugue; Göteborgs radioorkester, 1950(?), Radiotjänst RC 309
'Swedish Orchestral Works', performed by the Norrköpings Symfoniorkester.Fun House FHCE-2016 [and/or Fun House FHCE-2016?]
None of the above recordings have been available for a number of years.
This piece is included on Railroad Rhythms (HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187) issued in November 2006.

1933
Amfitheatrof, Daniele
Panoirama american [American panorama], for orchestra (with extra percussion)
Composed before the composer set foot on American soil, this work seeks to evoke the sound of America ~ including sounds of steam trains. N.B. Groves cites 1933 as the year of composition, bvut I have seen 1935 cited elsewhere; the work received its first performance, in Italy, in 1937.
X LXCD 8 (not currently available?)

Bogan, Lucille and Walter Roland
'T&NO Blues'
(The T&NO was the Texas & New Orleans railroad).
Previously recorded in 1930 by Hattie Hyde, although this recording has not survived.
Blues Document BDCD-6037

Eisler, Hanns.
'Kohlen für Mike' /'Coal for Mike', the first of Two Choruses, Op. 35, for male voices.
A setting of words by Brecht, based on Sherwood Anderson's story about the widow of a railway worker employed by the Wheeling [& Lake Erie? & New York?] Railroad Company, Ohio.After her husband's work-related death, she received no compensation from the Company, so firemen on trains passing her house threw coal into her backyard so that she would have enough fuel for the winter.
German version published by Breitkopf & Haertel; English version in Brecht Eisler Songbook. See also http://eislermusic.com/.
Berlin Classics 0092362BC

Ellington, Duke
Daybreak Express
A glorious evocation in sound of the acceleration, rapid progress, and slowing down of a steam train, complete with wailing whistle and clanging bell.
KAZ CD 307, Living Era CD AJS 2015

Steinberg, Maximilian
Symphony no. 4 ('Turksib')
Written to celebrate the opening of the Turmenistan Siberian railway. I'm told the music has 'some Honeggeresque sounds'.

Young, Joe, Chas. Tobias and Fred J.Coots
Two Tickets to Georgia
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

1934
Brook, Harry
From a Railway Carriage, unison song
A setting of the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Published by OUP (The Oxford Choral Songs no. 1084)

Dessau, Paul
'Kleine Eisenbahn', from Zehn Kinderstücke, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

Gardiner, Reginald
Trains
Living Era CD AJA 6510

Høffding, Finn.
Das Eisenbahngleichnis, for SATB choir, three saxophones and piano
'Life is like a railway journey' - a setting by this Danish composer of a text by the German author Erich Kästner.

Macaffer, Jimmy
Holiday Express.
Although the date of composition is not known, this piece was recorded by Teddy Joyce and his Orchestra - for whom it is likely to have been written - on 20th December 1934. (Macaffer played trumpet in the Teddy Joyce Orchestra, a British (although Joyce was Canadian) dance band.
The Golden Age of British Dance Bands 1934-36. OEA-951-1 {LP]
The Golden Age of British Jazz. World Records SH 364

Rock Island Line
This song, though probably a good deal older, was twice recorded from groups of convicts in Arkansas during 1934 by John Lomax. The text 'presents a train both impossibly fast and excruciatingly slow. Either way, it remains a vehicle an imprisoned man cannot board, a deliverance denied by his status' (Stephen Wade). Lomax was almost certainly accompanied and assisted by Hoddie Ledbetter, who as 'Leadbelly' frequently performed and several times recorded this song between 1937 and 1949. Later it was a hit for Lonnie Donegan in 1954.
Rounder 1144, 1500, 2142
Living Era CD AJA 6510 (Lonnie Donegan)

Weill, Kurt
'Le Train du Ciel'
One of seven songs written as incidental music to Marie Galante, by J. Deval.
Several recordings.

1935
Blower, Maurice
In the Train, for SATB
Words by J. Thomson
Published by Stainer & Bell

Frank and Manoloff
She'll be comin' round the mountain
'Had a dream the other night, about a railroad train,
She went rolling up the mountain....'
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Gershwin, George
Porgy and Bess
Includes 'A Red headed woman makes a choo-choo jump its track', and 'Leavin' for the Promis' Lan'. The lyics of the latter includes 'Oh, the train is at the station/An' you better get on board/'Cause it's leavin' today... Keep that drivin' wheel a rollin'.... Oh, I got my ticket ready...', and the song concludes with some evocative steam train effects and a blaring whistle from the orchestra.
Several recordings [but be warned, these two songs are not invariably included among selected highlights]

Lofton, 'Cripple' Clarence and 'Red Nelson' [Nelson Wilburn]
Streamline Train
Lofton 'beat out the rhythm of the wheels on the piano keys' [Haymes]. America's first streamlined train had appeared in 1934.
Blues Document BDCD-6006

Mohr, Gerhard and Erich Plessow
Orient Express
Recorded by Sidney Torch at the Regal Cinema, Edmonton , London, in March 1935; remarkable for the extraordinary railway sounds which Torch obtains from the cinema organ.
Included on the CDs 'On the Right Track' and 'Vintage Trains' (see Discography)

Réti, Rudolf
Ausflug mit der Eisenbahn, for solo, optional chorus, percussion and piano
Words by Christian Morgenstern
Published by [?], Vienna?, c.1935. Copy in British Library.

Scott-Wood
Flying Scotsman, for organ
A recording of Sidney Torch playing this piece in January, 1938, is included on the CD 'On the Right Track' (see Discography). It is remarkable less for its music than for the railway sounds which Sidney Torch extracts from the cinema organ..

Silver, Abner
Santa Claus Express, by Abner Silver, Al Sherman and Al Lewis.
Possibly written in 1934? Published by Chappell & Co., 1935.
Performed by Dan Donovan and chorus with Henry Hall on the CD 'On the Right Track' (see Discography)

Stothart, Herbert
Music for the film Anna Karenina -
including passages to accompany scenes of a night rail journey to St Petersburg

Williams, [?] and Arthur LeClerq
There's a Body on the Line
Recorded by Jack Payne and his band. Described to me as 'entertaining...with some train effects'.

1936
Britten, Benjamin
Night Mail
Composed to provide the soundtrack, with verses by W.H.Auden, to a classic documentary film of a mail train travelling Britain’s West Coast main line from Euston to Scotland. The film was produced by the GPO Film Unit and directed by John Grierson.
Hyperion CDA 66845
Video NFA/Post Office/HA/VID

Britten, Benjamin
The Way to the Sea
Altogether less known than Night Mail, this was also written as a soundtrack to a film with a text by W.H.Auden. The film, The Way to the Sea, was made by Strand Films for the Southern Railway; it is about the history of Portsmouth, the London-Portsmouth coach road, and the then recently electrified London-Portsmouth railway.
Beulah 1PD14
Beulah video Ports o' War

1937
Alain, Jehan
Litanies, for organ
I have it on good authority that the rhythms on which this work is based were at least partly inspired by the suburban train between Saint Germain-en-Laye, the composer's home, and the Gare St Lazaire, and I'm grateful to Peter Vizard for bringing this to my attention. But of course any such influence would have been subsidiary to the primary religious inspiration, and I find it hard to hear a train in the music.
Several recordings

Gray, Allan
Music for the film Kate Plus Ten

---

To avoid any confusion, it is perhaps worth noting that Honegger's Scenic Railway, Martinu's Le Train Hanté, and Tcherpnin's Autor des Montagnes Russes' , for piano, are not concerned with real railways but with rides at the Paris Exposition of 1937. 'Montagnes Russes' - 'Russian mountains' - was a French term for the roller-coaster or scenic railway. All three pieces were among several piano pieces commissioned to commemorate the event. All are available on a CD issued by Etcetera: KTC 1061. The Honegger and Martinu pieces are also on Prezioso CD 800.062, a collection of railway music for the piano.

Levy, Louis [and/or Jack Beaver?]
Music for the film Oh Mr Porter!
Levy is credited with the music for this film, but Philip Scowcroft suggests that much of the score may have been written by Jack Beaver].

Le Quintette du Hot Club de France
Mystery Pacific
members of the quintet include Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt.
Included on the album Hot Trains, Saga Jazz 49/066 482-2

Rodgers, Richard (& Lorenz Hart)
All Points West. Musical

Tailleferre, Germaine.
Score for Boris Perskine's documentary film Sur les routes d'acier.
Germaine Tailleferre was the only female member of the group of composers, 'Les Six'. This film has been restored, but seems not to be available as a video or DVD.

1938
Burkhard, Willy
'Auf der Eisenbahn', from Acht leichte Klavierstücke, for piano
Prezioso CD 800.062

Ellis, Vivian
Coronation Scot
A British light music classic which was used as the signature tune of the 'Paul Temple' series on BBC radio. Apparently it was actually inspired by trains on the Great Western Railway in Somerset, but was named after the famous LMS train by the publisher. To add to the confusion, a version for piano was published in 1948 with a cover illustration of the LNER 'Coronation' train.
Hyperion CDA 66868, Marco Polo 8 223522, Naxos 4 553515, EMI CDGB50, Classic FM 75605 57003-2, Living Era CD AJA 5610, HMV 5 735502, 'On the Right Track' (see Discography).
Piano version included on Bound for Glory CD (see Discography).

Kosma, Joseph
Soundtrack for La Bête Humaine, the classic film by Jean Renoir based on Zola's novel

Krenek, Ernst
'Streamliner', from Twelve Short Piano-Pieces written in the twelve-tone technique (Op.83)
Prezioso CD 800.062

Levy, Louis
Music for the film The Lady Vanishes

Mayerl, Billy
Railroad Rhythm
One of Billy Mayerl’s jazz-inspired ‘syncopated impressions’ for piano solo.
EMI CDM 65596-2

Revueltas, Silvestre
Musica para Charlar for orchestra
Two suites of excerpts from the Mexican composer's soundtrack for the film Ferrocariles de baja California, also dating from 1938. Includes 'Construction of the Railroad', 'Sleepers and Rails', etc.
ASV CDDCA942
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

Rouse, Ervin T.
Orange Blossom Special
In 1938 the Seaboard Air Line's 'Orange Blossom Special' became Florida's first streamlined train. Bluegrass fiddlers Ervin T. Rouse and Chubby Wise went to Union Station to see it and made up this tune afterwards; to his subsequent regret Wise relinquished all claim to it. It was first recorded by the Rouse Brothers in 1939, and has since been performed and recorded by other groups, its evocation of the sound and speed of the train posing something of a challenge to virtuoso instrumentalists.

Terry, Sonny
Train whistle blues
A virtuoso harmomica solo imitating the sound of a train.
CBS CO417M

1939
Antheil, George
Score for the film Union Pacific, directed by Cecile B. DeMille.
The drama takes place against the backdrop of the building of the intercontinental railroad, and climaxes on the day in 1869 when the 'Golden Spike' was due to be driven at Promontory Point. See under 1945 below for Antheil's piece (presumably closely related' The Golden Spike which became the 3rd movement of his Symphony no. 3. [Thanks to Klaus Matzka for informing me of the film score which is not cited in some lists of Antheil's works].
DVD available [NTSC format only]

Britten, Benjamin
'Calypso', from Cabaret Songs
The Cabaret Songs are settings of texts by W.H.Auden. In 'Calypso' the poet imagines himself on a train on the Springfield Line to Grand Central Station, New York, where his lover, Chester Kallman, is waiting for him. The poem begins 'Driver, drive faster and make a good run/Down the Springfield Line under the shining sun', and Britten's setting evokes both the poet's impatient longing and the rhythm of the train in a continuous accelerando punctuated by piercing blasts of the engine's whistle.
CDE 84167
MACD 729
DKPCD 9138

Green, Ray
Three inventories of Casey Jones [or, Three inventories on a Texan tune']
for piano and orchestra

Grofé, Ferde
Wheels: a Musical Panorama of Transportation
The third movement of this work, by a master of 'symphonic jazz', is titled 'Iron Horse'. Was it perhaps composed for the New York World's Fair, like Kurt Weill's piece (below)? It was never recorded commercially, but a recording, from a radio programme in the early 1940s, exists on 16" transcription discs. [Thanks to Jim Farrington for telling me about this].

Stone, Lew [with Bobby McGhee)
Canadian Pacific

Weill, Kurt
Railroads on Parade/Fantasia on Rail Transport
For Edward Hungerford's pageant Railroads on Parade, staged in the railroad pavilion at the New York World's Fair, Weill wrote 'a most original but oddly European-sounding score based on American railroad songs' (Groves), though it also includes songs written by Weill himself. This work, 'For locomotives, actors, dancers, soloists, chorus, and orchestra', and comprising narration, songs, choruses, and choral interludes, lasted 70 minutes in performance [the musical content lasted 45 minutes]. Songs included 'Low Bridge', 'What the engine said', 'Oh Mister, where's the train', 'We man the trains' [Song of the Railroad Workers', and 'Wheels through the Night'. Weill completed a score in 1938, but added to it in 1939, prior to the World's Fair, and in 1940, when the work was revived for the 1940 Fair. The first performance took place on 30th April 1939. The only music from the show to be published was a song, retitled 'Mile after Mile', lyrics by Buddy Bernier and Charles Alan, published by Crawford in 1939; in the same year a version for jazz orchestra by Paul Weirick was also published. A sheet-music copy of 'Mile after Mile', for voice and piano/guitar, can be found in the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music collection. It is also included in Kurt Weill Songs: a centennial anthology vol. 1 [http://www.encoremusic.com/. Full details of the entire work, and of surviving sketches, drafts, and scores, can be found in Kurt Weill: a handbook, by David Drew [Faber, 1987], and information is also available at http://www.kwf.org/
RCA 09026 635 132 2 ('Mile after Mile' only)

In 1992 David Drew compiled a suite drawn from the 1940 version of the score. Abandoning the narrative of the original, the suite is a medley of spirited arrangements of American folk songs, none of which concern railways directly with the exception of the finale, 'Trains Bound for Glory', which is introduced with bells and whistles and sounds of steam.

The only recorded music from this work which is currently available is a performance of the band arrangement of 'Mile after Mile', on:
Charming Weill [also released under the title Life, Love and Laughter]
RCA Red Seal09026 635132

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1940s
White, Edward
Puffin' Billy
This orchestral piece was used as the signature tune for the BBC Radio programme Children's Choice from its inception in December 1952; from 1954 it was retitled Children's Favourites.
Hyperion CDA66868

1940
Copland, Aaron
John Henry, for chamber orchestra
A brief (4 minutes) piece, originally subtitled 'Railroad Ballad for Small Orchestra', the result of a commission from CBS to compose a short work for the 'School of the Air' series of radio broadcasts. Copland wrote: 'I began to work on John Henry by going through the collection of folk tunes put together by Alan Lomax... The one I chose is based on the well-known railroad ballad... A clarinet introduces the theme, and to add to the excitement and help achieve the sound of a train and John Henry's hammer, the scoring calls for triangle, anvil, sandpaper blocks, train whistle, and piano, in addition to chamber orchestra. The material lent itself easily to unorthodox rhythms and harmonies, which I hoped to introduce to young performers and listeners... I revised the work in 1952 so that it could be performed by high school orchestras as a concert piece' [Copland vol. 1 1900-1942. Faber, 1984].
Sony SM3K46559
Sony CD80117
HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

Ellington, Duke
Across the Track Blues

Warren, Henry [Miller, Glenn]
Chattanooga Choo Choo
This number, so closely associated with Glenn Miller, was actually written by Harry Warren for the film Sun Valley Serenade (1941) starring Glenn Miller; it was arranged for the Glenn Miller Orchestra by Jerry Gray. [Other railway pieces performed by but not originating with the Glenn Miller Orchestra were Tuxedo Junction, Sleepy Town Train, and Slow Freight, and 9.20 Special].

White, Bukka
'Special Steam Line'
JSP-7715

1941
Arlen, Harold
Blues in the Night [lyrics by Johnny Mercer]
Written for the film of the same name, this became a jazz standard:
'Now the rain's a-fallin', hear the trains a-callin' "Whooee!"...
Hear dat lonesome whistle blowin' 'cross the trestle, "Whooee!"...
A-whooee-ah-whooee ol' clickety-clack's a-echoin' back th' blues in the night...'
[Thanks, David Palmquist]

Harris, Roy
Railroad Men's Ballad for chorus and orchestra.
A setting of 'Casey Jones'. A contemporary critic wrote that it '...got off to a good start with the chorus intoning the melody over an ostinato in the orchestra, but the ostinato went on much too long and the ending proved strikingly ineffectual'. Which no doubt explains why it seems never to have been recorded.

Levy, Louis
Music for the film The Ghost Train

Robinson, Earl Hawley
The Lonesome Train - cantata for six speakers, eight soloists, chorus and orchestra.
The 'lonesome train' is Abraham Lincoln's funeral train:

A lonesome train on a lonesome track
Seven coaches painted black
A slow train, a quiet train
Carrying Lincoln home again

1942
Young, Percy Marshall
From a Railway Carriage, unison song
A setting of the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Published by E.J. Arnold & Son (Leeds)

1943
Partch, Harry
U.S. Highball - a Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip
An extraordinary work by an extraordinary composer, based on his own experience of travelling with hobos, hopping freight trains from San Francisco to Chicago in 1941. U.S. Highball combines voices of hobos, and railroad station names, with sounds from instruments designed and made by Partch himself, producing effects wonderfully evocative of the sounds of the railroad. Over 25 minutes in length, this is among the most considerable pieces of railway music, and is in my view a neglected masterpiece. Partch revised it in 1955.
Recordings:
Enclosure 2, Innova Recordings 401 [original version for voice and adapted guitar, performed by Partch ]
The Harry Partch Collection 2, Composers Recordings Inc. CR1 752 [1955 version, recorded in 1958; performed by Partch and others]
The Wayward - released by Wergo in 2002 [performed by Dean Drummond's Newband with Stephen Kalm and Robert Osborne]
Harry Partch: U.S. Highball, Nonesuch 7559-79697-2, released in 2003 [version for voice and string quartet arranged by Ben Johnston and performed by David Barron and the Kronos Quartet].

1944
Barber, Samuel
Excursions, for piano
The first of these four pieces is written in a lively boogie-woogie style which suggests the sounds of a train; chords in the right hand may perhaps represent a train whistle? However, I am not aware of any documentary evidence of a railroad connection.
Several recordings.

Bernstein, Leonard
'Dream in the Subway', ballet music from the musical comedy On the Town.
Several recordings, including HNS-Hanssler Classic 93.187

Gay, Noel [pseudonym of Reginald Moxon Armitage]
Meet me at Victoria, musical
The hero of this musical comedy is a railway porter.

Krenek, Ernst
The Ballad of the Railroads, op. 98
A song cycle in which the composer 'interweaves happy memories of childhood train travel with a gruelling depiction of his journey from Nazi-occupied Austria to California' .
Orfeo C383 991A

Lutyens, Elisabeth
En Voyage
A suite evoking a journey from London to Paris by train and boat.

Williams, Charles.
Rhythm on rails, for orchestra
An example of British light music.

1945
Antheil, George
'The Golden Spike'
Premiered as a piece in its own right on 28th November 1945 (but see under 1939 above for its origins in a film score). Added to the Symphony no. 3 ('American') of 1936-39 as the 3rd movement, when the Symphony was revised in 1946.
Symphony no. 3 : CPO 777 040-2 [Thanks, Klaus Matka]

Foster, Teddy
Takin' the Trains Out (Chasin' After You)
Recorded on 25th July by Teddy Foster and his Band, with vocals by Betty Kent. Also recorded by Jack Payne - the Jack Payne version has been described to me as 'most enjoyable...with train effects'.

Horton, Vaughn, Denver Darling and Milton Gabler
Choo-Choo Ch'Boogie
A hit for Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five.
Living Era CD AJA 5610

Krenek, Ernst
The Santa Fe Time Table, op. 102, for mixed chorus (SSAATB)
A list of station names from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad timetable, set for a cappella choir 'in the style of Josquin Despres's three-part polyphony'.
Orion LP ORS 75204 (no longer available)

Mercer, Johnny, and Harry Warren
'On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe'

'Do yuh hear that whistle down the line?
I figure that it's engine number forty nine,
She's the only one that'll sound that way
On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe'

Williams, Charles.
Model railway, for orchestra
An example of British light music.

1946
Abady, Temple
Score for documentary film, Railways (Crown Film Unit)

Acuff, Roy
Night Train to Memphis
Roy Acuff, a country singer, recorded an album of Great Train Songs in 1965

Bacon, Ernst
From these States, orchestral suite
The American composer Ernst Bacon was very intereste in trains and wrote a number of railway-related pieces. two more can be found under the year1952; some others are undated, and even Bacon's widow has been unable to pinpoint the year of composition, so they are included in the list of pieces without known dates. In an e-mail to me, Ernst Bacon's widow has described this suite of 11 'songs' (without words) as 'a kind of musical train ride across America, mostly based on folk materials'. The first movement is entitled 'Laying of the Rails (A Sledge-Hammer Song)', and the last is 'Timberline Express (A D. & R.G. Fantasy)'. A footnote on the score of this last piece reads 'This is none of your air-conditioned, ball-bearing, diesel-powered, silent, floatatious, super-de luxe modern streamline trains. It belongs to an era of railway adventure. It charges along with obvious energy... It has a genuine steam whistle, harmoniously tuned - none of your pneumatic calf-like bleatings...'
Score published by G.Schirmer. For more information on Ernst Bacon, visit the Ernst Bacon Society Web site at http://www.ernstbacon.org/

Baker, Kenny
Bakerloo Non-Stop
Written for the Ted Heath band, for whom Kenny Baker was working as lead trumpeter, and recorded for Decca in 1946.
On Ted Heath and his Music, ASV/Living Era

Batt, Malcolm John (aka John Malcolm)
Non-Stop
A British light music classic, originally written for piano and in its orchestrated version used as the theme for ITN News. Surely the title refers to a train?
GLCD 5131

Ellington, Duke (and Billy Strayhorn)
Happy Go Lucky Local
Thanks to Jim White for reminding me of this one, in which (in his words) 'We hear the rattle and bustle of a suburban (local) service, quite different from the suave, sophisticated 'A' Train' (of 1941). Thanks also to David Palmquist for telling me that this piece was originally part of Ellington's 'Deep South Suite'.
Several recordings.

Jordan, Louis
Choo Choo Ch' Boogie
A no. 1 hit for 18 weeks, this has been described as 'one of R & B's great classics'
Rounder 1144

Moeran, E. J.
Fantasy Quartet - for oboe, violin, viola and cello
Moeran was a railway enthusiast [as was his friend Philip Heseltine - the composer 'Peter Warlock'], and railway rhythms, possibly portraying a rural local train in Norfolk, can be heard in the middle and towards the end of this piece. Note also Moeran's Symphony in G, cited above [1924].
CHAN 839 2
CAM 69

Spurgin, Anthony.
West Country Special
An example of British light music.

Stein, William and Frank Loesser
Wave to me, my lady
'Just took a job in the railroad yard,/ Pay me good, work me hard'
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Torch, Sidney
Wagon Lit
A British light music classic, included on the CD 'On the Right Track' (see Discography)

Williams, Charles
Music for the film Night Train to Munich

1947
Beaver, Jack
Golden Arrow
included on the CD 'On the Right Track' (see Discography).

Lambert, Constant
Music for film Anna Karenina
I'm told that the score includes passages written to accompany scenes of a night rail journey to St Petersburg.

Richardson, Clive
Running off the Rails
A British light music classic, included on the CD 'On the Right Track' (see Discography)

1948
Bäck, Sven-Eric
The Train
Soundtrack for a film by Gosta Werner evoking impressions of railways in Sweden.
Video Video Rights VRL0030

Frankel, Benjamin
Music for film Sleeping Car to Trieste

Kaufman, Walter.
Madras Express, orchestra

Maxwell, Helen Purcell
Wheels O'Rolling
The official song of the Chicago Railroad Fair
Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Schaeffer, Pierre
Etude aux Chemins de Fer
A short work comprising authentic train sounds recorded and edited on tape, by the originator of 'musique concrète'; revised in 1971.
Both versions are included on Musidisc 292572 [3 CD sets of Schaeffer's complete work]
The piece is also included on 'OHM - Early Gurus of Electronic Music', Ellipsis ELLICD3670

Weill, Kurt
'The Little Black Train', in Down in the Valley
An American folk son g, re-used by Weill in this opera.
Capriccio 60 020 1

1949
Archer, Violet Balestreri
'Train at night', one of three songs comprising the song cycle Under the Sun for unspecified voice and piano by this Canadian composer who died in the year 2000. 'Sometimes at night I hear a train far off/ Shunting in the yards...' The other two songs are 'First snow' and 'Flying geese'; the words are by Arthur S. Bourinot. Although unpublished, the music is available from the Canadian Music Centre, http://www.musiccentre.ca/

Prokofiev
Winter Bonfire - children's suite, op. 122
In the opening movement, 'Departure', Prokofiev uses the orchestra to evoke the sounds of an approaching train; in the words of one writer on Prokofiev, he employs 'such descriptive effects as measured tapping of the timpani, a thundering roll of a snare drum, mechanically precise figurations in the strings, and shouts from the muted trumpets' to 'create images of the metrical clatter of wheels and the blasts of a whistle of a train flying past snow-covered woods'. These sounds are heard again in the final movement, 'The Return'.
Several recordings.

Weill, Kurt
'Train to Johannesburg', from the musical Lost in the Stars [based on Alan Paton's novel Cry the Beloved Country].
MCAD 110302; Decca Broadway 0881 10302-2 (original cast); Music Masters 01612-67100-2

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1950
Ellington, Duke
Build that Railroad (Sing that Song)

1951
Gilkyson, Terry
Fast Freight
Song. Sheet music in the collection of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Martin, Hugh
'Whistle Stop', the 2nd movement of the Grandma Moses Suite.
Originally composed as background music for a 22 minute documentary movie about Grandma Moses, the American 'naive' painter. (Hugh Martin is better known for the musical 'I'll Meet You in St Louis' and the song 'Have Yourself a Merry, Merry Christmas'). (Thanks to Klaus Matzka for telling me about this piece).
DRG 19044 [not currently available]

1952
Auric, Georges
Soundtrack for The Titfield Thunderbolt
It seems curious that a distinguished French composer, a member of the group of composers known as 'Les Six', contributed the soundtrack to several quintessentially British films (also including The Lavender Hill Mob and Passport to Pimlico).
FILMCD177 (excerpts)
Chandos CHAN 9774
Video also available

Bacon, Ernst
'The Last Train', from A Tree on the Plains, for piano [4 hands] and SATB chorus. Words by Paul Horgan.
The opening sequence of chords on the piano is marked 'A real steam cry; none of your diesel brays'.
Score published by the Shawnee Press, Inc. (1954).

Bacon, Ernst
Peterborough: suite for viola and piano
Two versions of this suite survive in manuscript. One includes Includes a section titled 'The 11.38 Daily'. The other includes a different piece called 'The 11.45 Daily'. A note on the score of this second piece explains that this train 'used to carry one passenger car, with singing conductor, Worcester, Mass. to Peterborough, a leisurely swamp-rabbit between towns. Now not even rails are left, nor most of the ties'. Peterborough, New Hampshire, is the location of the MacDowell Colony, founded by the composer Edward MacDowell, where Ernst Bacon spent several summers.

Fernside, Joe
'The Woy Woy Workers' Train'
A popular song expressing dissatisfaction with the state of Australian railways at this time.
Recorded on Trains of Treasure [see Discography]

Forrest, Jimmy
Night Train
A no. 1 hit for Jimmy Forrest, and also for Buddy Morrow and his orchestra; echoes Ellington and Strayhorn's Happy Go Lucky Local of 1946 (Forrest played in the Ellington band of the late 1940s).
Rounder 1144

Hill-Bowen, William
Paris Metro
I'm told that this piece was the theme tune - or featured on the sound track - of the BBC TV series Railway Roundabout, but was not included on the accompanying videos. It was included on a CD, Great British Light Orchestras: George Melachrino, released by HMV in 1992

Parker, Clifton
Music for documentary film 'Elizabethan Express', produced by British Transport films

Rathburn, Eldon
The Romance of Transportation; music for an animated cartoon
Eldon Rathburn was for many years staff composer for the National Film Board of Canada; in this capacity, but also as an independent composer, he wrote several pieces of railway-related music, from the 1950s through the 1990s; many (I hope all) are included in this list. I am also indebted to him for generously sharing with me his knowledge of railway music.

Roland, Gene
'Lonesome Train'
recorded by Stan Kenton on his album Stan Kenton: concepts of artistry in rhythm.