“Blue Railroad Train” comes from Alton Delmore, who wrote most of the original songs that he and his younger brother Rabon recorded as the Delmore Brothers. The pair cut it in Chicago on 7 December 1933, the second day of their first sessions for Victor’s budget label Bluebird. The same Chicago dates produced “Brown’s Ferry Blues” and “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar.” Bluebird issued “Blue Railroad Train” in July 1934 on B-5531, backed with “I’ve Got the Big River Blues.” John Lilly’s history of the duo calls it their tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, who had died that May. Alton had come under Rodgers’s influence as a boy, and the Delmores’ two-part yodel was their own turn on his vocal trademark. Their sound also rested on Rabon’s four-string tenor guitar, an instrument Alton had brought home after seeing it in a travelling vaudeville show.
The lyric is a lonesome traveller’s song. The singer watches a train pull out and leave him behind, and its whistle and smokestack only deepen his blues and make him think of home. He wants company and the one he loves, who is many miles away. By the last verse he is waiting for the manifest freight and hoping the engineer will let him ride as his guest, and he calls the train a good old pal that takes him wherever he wants to go for free.
The song lasted well beyond the Delmores’ own records. The Mulkey Brothers put it on a Rich-R-Tone 78 in 1947, and Doc Watson opened side one of Southbound (Vanguard, 1966) with “Walk On, Boy” followed by “Blue Railroad Train.” Mac Martin & the Dixie Travelers recorded it for Goin’ Down the Country (Rural Rhythm, 1968). Watson came back to it with his son Merle on Lonesome Road (United Artists, 1977), and again as a guest on Marty Stuart’s BusyBee Cafe (Sugar Hill, 1982), where he and Stuart share the lead vocal. Tony Rice cut it for Manzanita (Rounder, 1979), with Ricky Skaggs singing tenor, Sam Bush on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro and Todd Phillips on bass. Josh Williams (Down Home, 2010) and Leftover Salmon (Grass Roots, 2023) have recorded it since.
