Train Trek Lyrics - Robert Earl Keen

Train Trek 

Lyrics for Album: Farm Fresh Onions 

Tracks are starting to rumble, wheels beginning to roll 

There's a short handle shovel full of number 9 coal 

Hey, mister brakeman are we running on time 

No, mister engineer, think we're falling behind 

Will we crash on the trestle? Will we pass on the plain? 

All I can guess is, we'll be seeing that train 

No way to stop em? No way to tell? 

Keep your hand on the throttle and your eye on the rail 

Send the word to the sherriff, make the people lie down 

Tell the cook and the coachman, there's no turning round 

Up ahead is the tunnel, just beyond is the bend 

Pass the word to the preacher, it's all up to him 

Said the preacher's been drinking and he's starting to cry 

Saying Great God Almighty, we're all gonna die 

All the porters are betting nobody survives 

And the Indian Cowboy is taking a dive 

The undertaker is laughing, the doctor's cold as a stone 

The fiddle player is playing there's no place like home 

We'll be making the trestle just over the hill 

If we don't make it now boys, we never will 

When the trains hit the trestle and the trestle gave way 

The two trains collided in midair they say 

When the dust finally settled, all they found was a hole 

And a short handle shovel full of number 9 coal 

A hundred years after and a hundred miles high 

The captain commander looks down from the sky 

And he says to his soldiers, "She's pullin too strong" 

"We can hold her together, but we can't hold her for long" 

So we look for a message and we search in our souls 

As we sift through the wreckage like we're shoveling coal.