Train World #1

Regular readers probably remember me writing about our model train back in December—it hasn’t gone to the isle of misfit toys, but is steadily “gathering steam” as it were (rimshot!) in what was our sitting room—an interesting den that has served as everything from a TV room to a Tai Chi room to a music-listening & jigsaw puzzle-building room—& also has an incredibly comfortable recliner for mid afternoon siestas. Unfortunately, I can’t do “before” & “after” pix, because there really aren’t any "before" photos—but I can assure you that it looked quite a bit different before we moved out three bookshelves & a loveseat, & otherwise re-arranged everything! As is so often the case with shifting furniture around—or so I find—we liked the end result better in all cases.

The next step in train evolution was getting a table to use as a base for train world. I’ve done a fair amount of woodworking in the past, & knew I’d be quite capable of building such a table. On the other hand, because of my respiratory condition, it’s hard for me to work out in my unheated shop this time of year, & frankly, it’s not that easy to do woodworking at this point due to sawdust, etc. So we asked our contractor Chris, who’s in the midst of a couple of renovation projects here if he’d build one—he did a good job in much less time than it would have taken me even under good circumstances! The table is now covered with a single layer of 2 inch styrofoam (Eberle's cutting this in the pic; the next pic shows my fancy clamping job after gluing it down.)

Eberle—who’s also quite excited about train world (a very happy turn of events from my perspective) & I have decided we’re going to model a sort of late 1940s scene in a landscape like California’s Owens Valley. For those of you who haven’t traveled U.S. Highway 395 south of Bishop, California, or who haven’t seen the film Chinatown, the Owens Valley has a fascinating history—for one thing, its water has been diverted to the Los Angeles area, so you see successions of dry lakes & rivers, often with salt & mineral deposits covering the surface.

We aren’t aiming for any specific location, so the modeling will involve plenty of imaginative touches. The train (not the one shown in the photos) will be a Union Pacific freight train, tho later on I’d like to add a Southern Pacific “Daylight” passenger train as well. We do know that there will be one town & another smaller settlement, pretty much kitty korner to each other, & there will also be a borax mine! It’s been interesting to do a bit of fun research on borax mining, which as fans of the old “Death Valley Days” know, took place in the more desert sections of the Owens Valley.

We’ll be getting some more track in the very near future, as well as the components of our UP freight train—the latter thanks to eBay; it was difficult to put together a UP freight train in N scale for our time period, but eBay came to the rescue—including a winning bid on the all important locomotive in the last 20 seconds! I’ll have pix of the updated setting with the updated train in a couple of weeks. For now, we’re having fun with the old UP American 4-4-0 locomotive—a extremely old model of locomotive used as far back as the 1830s! Eberle’s idea is that we may run it as an excursion train in our mid 20th century model! Oh yes—the set up won't include stone bookends & wires draped everywhere; I'm waiting to get all the track in place to drill holes for running the wires under the table.

Hope you enjoy this brief look at train world as it exists today.

The (Blues) Christmas Train #2

Eberle & I have been so astoundingly busy of late that our own model train is still in the planning stages—but fear not! The virtual Blues Christmas Train is continuing to run here on Robert Frost’s Banjo, making a stop at the blog station every Wednesday & on Christmas, & delivering three songs each day. Contrary to what I announced originally, there won't be train song post this Friday—I'd overlooked the fact that there are five Wednesdays this December.

Let’s see what’s at the station today—

BULL DOZE BLUES: If you only have time to listen to one of today’s three songs, I’d urge you to make it this one—although you may know this song as “Goin’ Up the Country” by Canned Heat, this is the original version by one Henry Thomas. Fans of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music will know one other song by Thomas—his “Fishin’ Blues,” which is the final song on the album (& which has been covered by Taj Mahal). Thomas was born in the 1870s, so he really came from a generation before the great early bluesmen such as Charlie Patton & Blind Lemon Jefferson. By the time Henry Thomas recorded in the late 1920s, he was over 50 years old; those sessions produced 23 tracks.

Thomas had a wonderfully bouncy guitar style & was an appealing singer; but what really sets him apart is his use of the quills, a form of pan pipe made from sugar cane reeds. The quills can be held in place with any device similar to a harmonica holder, & thus allows the player to accompany himself on guitar or banjo.

As far as trains go, “Bull Doze Blues” tells how the singer is going away “just as sure as that train leaves out of that Mobile yard.” In Thomas’ day, “that train” would probably refer to the M&O, the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. This train line is also referred to in Willie Brown’s song “The M&O Blues,” which for complicated reasons won’t be on our holiday train song list, but which you can hear on YouTube here; I also did a version on Robert Frost’s Banjo for the Monday Morning Blues series.

The M&O could have taken Thomas to Tennessee, but not directly to Memphis. For that he would have had to change to the Illinois Central line in northern Alabama. Interestingly, the Illinois Central merged with the M&O (which by then had become the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio) in 1972. Henry Thomas: Texas Worried Blues: Complete Recorded Works 1927-1929 (Yazoo)



CHICKASAW TRAIN BLUES: It’s an unfortunate fact that the world of early blues guitar was almost exclusively a “man’s world”—& it’s great that this has since been redressed to some extent with the careers of performers such as Rory Block, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi & many others. But there was one woman guitar player in the early days of blues who had all the chops, & that was Memphis Minnie.

Born Liz Douglas in 1897, Memphis Minnie became an extremely popular performer from the 20s thru the 40s. Although her early sides such as “Chickasaw Train Blues” were recorded on acoustic guitar, she was one of the first to take up the electric guitar, & after her move north to Chicago in the 30s, she became one of the pioneers of what would become the Chicago blues sound. She really deserves to be much more widely known.

It took me a while to research the reference (at least the literal reference) to the “Chickasaw Train” in Memphis Minnie’s song. There was a train named the Chickasaw on the Illinois Central line. Of course, the train itself didn’t have the reputation of only letting men ride; but here the Chickasaw stands in for some seductress who pays women “no mind” while stealing their men. What exactly Memphis Minnie means by the Chickasaw’s attitude toward women is open to conjecture—it could simply be she has no concern for the heartbreak she’s causing other women; on the other hand, the line “I walk down the railroad track, that Chickasaw even wouldn't let me ride the blinds” suggests that there may be some sort of sexual rebuff.

In any case, it’s a great tune—Memphis Minnie’s singing is as good as her guitar playing—& like last week’s “Broke Down Engine,” another example of the train being used as a personification. Memphis Minnie: Hoodoo Lady (Snapper UK)



DEPOT BLUES: What would a list of blues songs be without Son House? I wanted to include his “I Want to Go Home on the Morning Train,” but there doesn’t seem to be a YouTube video for this. As a result, I’ve included “Depot Blues,” a song I’m less familiar with, & also a song he plays “Spanish style”—without a slide; quite unusual for House.

“Depot Blues” tells a familiar story: the train has taken the singer’s woman away, & what’s more, she isn’t “comin' back no more.” House often used so-called floating lyrics—such as the “blues is a worried old heart disease” or “I wish I had me a heaven of my own”; he also uses a lyric about hanging crepe on a door in several songs. Usually, he is hanging crepe on his woman’s door, to symbolize that the feelings between them have died—in this case, the woman has hung crepe on his door to let him know that her feelings for him have grown cold.

“Depot Blues” is an enjoyable track, tho not very representative of Son House’s usual playing style—not only is he playing with no slide on his left hand, but his fingerpicking is more delicate than his typical vigorously strummed attack. His singing is also a bit subdued on this one—usually when House sings, you can understand another of his favorite floating lyrics in an almost visceral way: “the blues is a lowdown aching chill.”
Son House: Delta Blues (Snapper UK)


Pix from Top:
A Bachmann 2-6-6-2 locomotive: (2-6-6-2 refers to the wheel arrangement - & if you read last week's post you know that the 6's are driving wheels) by Wikipedia user Freddie10538, who generously released it to the Public Domain
A 1903 Poor's Map of the M&O Railroad: Public Domain image from Wikipedia
Illinois Central Diesel Locomotive: by Wiki Commons userWisekwai under a GNU Free Documentation License
Hattiesburg Union Station in the early 1900s: Public Domain image from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History

The (Blues) Christmas Train #1

The Yuletide season is upon us, & what better way to celebrate it musically than with blues songs about trains! Now before you think this is just a crackpot idea, consider: what puts you in mind of Christmas morning more than a train set circling the tree? In fact, one of the earliest toys I remember was an HO train set that my father assembled on a sheet of plywood. I loved to watch the train go around its long loop.

Perhaps becuase of this memory, I've harbored a wish for a model train for years, but I never acted on it until a couple of weeks ago when we were visiting our dear friend & ex-Alice in Wonder Band singer Deadre Chase in her fabric shop in McCall. In addition to her beautiful hand-painted fabrics, she always has some used knick-knacks on hand, & that week, she had an N-scale model train set for a price that couldn’t be beat. As a result, I am now the proud owner of said set as an early Christmas present (Eberle also got an early present that one or both of us will write about soon).

So this month’s song series combines two loves: blues music & railroads! I’ll be going into a bit more depth on the songs, especially in terms of railroad lore suggested by the lyrics, so I’ll only write up three songs per post. The posts will come each Wednesday, as well as Friday the 11th & Christmas morning!

& there’s a bonus this week—I’ll be writing about Tommy Johnson’s “Cool Drink of Water,” on Just a Song—the post should be up by mid morning here in western US time. It's not only about trains; it’s one of the most haunting blues songs I know. But in the meantime, hope you enjoy these.

B & O BLUES: The B&O is the Baltimore & Ohio, one of the earliest U.S. lines, with the first section opening in 1830. It’s also represented in the game Monopoly (between Illinois & Atlantic Avenues), despite the fact that the B&O didn’t service Atlantic City. In fact the railroad ran from New York to St Louis, tho its headquarters were in Baltimore; the B&O also had branch lines that serviced Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland & Chicago. How a song about this rail line became so associated with Georgia blues singers is anyone’s guess; some attribute the song’s composition to the great Blind Willie McTell, who recorded it during a 1933 session in New York City; another Georgia bluesman, Buddy Moss, also recorded it in 1933; that’s the version in the accompanying video. Interstingly, there’s another song called “The B&O Blues” by yet another Georgia blues musician, Bumble Bee Slim, but this has a different melody & different lyrics. Blind Willie McTell: The Best of Blind Willie McTell (Yazoo); Buddy Moss: Complete Recordings, Vol. 2: 1933-1934 (Document)



BAD LUCK BLUES: Blind Lemon Jefferson catalogs a host of woes in “Bad Luck Blues”—he lost his money at cards, his “some joker” stole off with his “long-haired gal,” & he hasn’t seen his “sugar in three long weeks.” In the midst of this there are a couple of verses in which Blind Lemon sings about catching the Santa Fe (pronounced “Fee,” as is often the case in traditional music), while his “sugar” will catch the Katy. Of course, these are both train lines. The Santa Fe, also known as the Atcheson, Topeka & the Santa Fe (in yet another song) is another old line, with its charter dating to 1859. From the Texas shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the train worked its way up across Oklahoma & Kansas & into Colorado. The Katy is the standard slang for the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad, in the past often referred to as the K-T, & by extension, as the Katy. This train line also comes up in the great Yank Rachell song, “She Caught the Katy (& Left Me a Mule to Ride”), popularized by both Taj Mahal & the Blues Brothers. The Katy also began its ride northward from Texas’ Gulf Coast, but it turned eastward, travelling thru eastern Oklahoma & Kansas, & on to Missouri. Sounds like Blind Lemon & his sugar are going in different directions! Blind Lemon Jefferson: Blind Lemon Jefferson (Milestone)



BROKE DOWN ENGINE: We hear about driving wheels in a number of traditional songs—specifically, about locomotives that have no driving wheel. But what is the train engines driving wheel? Actually, it’s always plural, of course, since you have to have an even number of wheels with two per axle. The driving wheels are the large wheels you see on a locomotive—on old passenger trains the driving wheels could be up to 100 inches in diameter, with driving wheels on freight trains topping off at around 60 inches in diameter. According to the pithy Wikipedia definition:

On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive)….On Diesel and Electric locomotives the driving wheels may be directly driven by the traction motors.

The driving wheels are connected to the pistons by a series of roads, tho the diesel & electric locomotives often have separate motors for each driving wheel. Let’s put it this way: if the locomotive has a lost or broken driving wheel, it’s not going anywhere—& in Blind Willie’s case, to add insult to injury, he “ain't got no whistle or bell.” Blind Willie McTell: The Best of Blind Willie McTell (Yazoo)


Pix from Top
N Scale Santa Fe locomotive: posted to Wiki Commons by Winius under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Columbian in 1949: Public Domain photo from Wiki Commons
A Katy locomotive: Posted to Wiki Commons by Sean Lamb under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license
Driving Wheels from a 4-6-2 locomotive: Public Domain image from Wikipedia