“Streamline Cannonball,” sometimes written “Streamlined Cannonball,” was written by Roy Acuff, who recorded it with his Smoky Mountain Boys in 1940. It is one of a long line of railroad songs in country music, and it should not be confused with the older “Wabash Cannonball,” which Acuff also recorded.
The song is a celebration of a fast passenger train, naming the towns along its route and praising its speed and power. Railroads were still central to American life when Acuff cut it, and the lyric carries the pride and romance that trains held in that era.
The song passed easily into the old-time and bluegrass repertoire, where train numbers have always been favorites.
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