Music inspired by trains

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The Guardian

Bruckner and Dvorak loved them, Wagner hated them and Mendelssohn found a trip on a free-wheeling locomotive "agony for the nerves". On the day that fares rise while many services fail to satisfy, we look at which composers have got steamed up about trains

What music would best accompany your most recent train ride?

[chuffed]

Well now, have been into classical music for the last 50 years, playing piano and organ throughout that time, thought I knew a fair bit about music ....but  apart from the Dvorak Humoresque ( which I will never be able to hear again without  'railway announcement' words being put to it! )... the only one I have ever heard of.... is the last one !!
A delightful selection of music that certainly broadened my musical horizons ! Pity they didn't use it at the Big Ben Fireworks last night instead of the dire racket that they did play. The only bit of that, I enjoyed was, ' Mind the gap!'

[johnneyw]

I know that whenever I listen to Kraftwerk's Trans Europ Express I tend to start having a look at continental railway timeables and ticket price concessions that I might be eligible for.

I've been trying without any success to scource the background music to the oft repeated BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) 4 "Golden Age of Steam Railways". Anyone happen to have any helpful information here?

[patch38]

Long Train Running by the Doobie Brothers is an obvious choice!

Was the 'Mind the gap' on the fireworks track the authentic and original Peter Lodge recording or some johnnie-come-lately imposter?

 

[JayMac]

This one:

https://thekensingtons.bandcamp.com/track/intercity-baby

Intercity Baby by The Kensingtons.

Which I seem to remember I've mentioned on the forum before. Written and performed by a local Somerset band I knew back in the early-mid 1990s. Still follow the lead singer's music via Facebook. The lyrics of Intercity Baby detail a rail journey from Taunton to Leicester via Birmingham to meet a girlfriend. I particularly like the line, "Backwards out of Gloucester makes me blue", which dates the song. Only one CrossCountry service reverses there these days. Back then far more BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) cross country services did the reversal.

[TaplowGreen]

"Midnight Train to Georgia", "Down in a Tube station at Midnight" spring to mind....

[Western Pathfinder]

Rockabilly Hotpot  By leutenant pigeon from about 1972
iirc that single had the sound of a Class 52 Western in the background .
Also Rudy by Supertramp in which Temple Meads gets a mention .
Happy New Year to All Here .

[Surrey 455]

On and off, I've been going through my 7 inch singles and converting them to MP3. The results aren't always that great and I keep losing interest. Anyway, listening to my collection on random play today I reheard "Waiting for a Train" by Flash and the Pan although I was already on a train though

[ellendune]

Edward Elgar also loved trains. He apparently used to annoy his students at the Royal College of Music by telling them all about the engine that had brought him up from Worcester.  I have always thought that his Introduction and Allegro for strings reminded me of travelling on a train. 

Update: I mean the Allegro really not the Introduction

Arthur Honegger was also a train enthusiast and wrote a famous piece of music called Pacific 531 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_231

[JayMac]

Two that I currently have on my phone are Last Train To Clarkesville by The Monkees and Last Train To London by Electric Light Orchestra.

[TaplowGreen]

Two that I currently have on my phone are Last Train To Clarkesville by The Monkees and Last Train To London by Electric Light Orchestra.

......not forgetting "Last train to Transcentral" by KLF!

[chuffed]

The things you learn on here ! That's one of the reasons why I enjoy this forum so much.

[Red Squirrel]

...then there's City of New Orleans, by Arlo Guthrie...

[Steve Bray]

"City to City" by Gerry Rafferty is another train-inspired record.
 
To elaborate on the previous comment about the song "Rudy" by Supertramp, this starts with a loco pulling away from a station, with mid-way through the record a station announcement at Paddington announcing that "the 1945 to Bristol Temple Meads will depart from Platform 2" listing the stations it calls at

[Richard Fairhurst]

Well now, have been into classical music for the last 50 years, playing piano and organ

Excellent, another organist!

My favourite train-themed song is Bob Delyn's rather wonderful Tren bach y sgwarnogod - "the little train of the hares".