Chuck Wagon Calhoun - The Phantom Train Number 5

Chuck Wagon Calhoun's latest song is his telling of a tale about a train that is doomed to repeat an historical wreck that took the lives of all its passengers, who are all trapped souls on the train. They suffer through their fate every night because of the sabotaging of the train by a jealous lover. The legend goes that the engineer of the train was carrying on an affair with the lady friend of one of the railroad porters, so to get revenge the porter made a break in one of the rails on a bend where the train was right on the edge of a steep drop off. When the engine hit the break, it derailed, plummeting it and all the passenger and freight cars over the side and down the deep ravine. The engineer was thrown out of the train and suffered serious injury, but ironically survived. All the passengers were killed when the freight cars that hauled pig iron on the train fell on them at the bottom of the ravine and crushed them to death.  At least this is the story told to us by Calhoun's agent. 

Chuck Wagon of course picks and chooses the details he used in the song, and more than likely made the whole dang thing up. He's a spinner of tall tales, entertaining though they are. Our only complaint is that he takes a more or less serious tone with the song until the very last comment on the recording, and it kinds of spoils the effect.

Howdy
My name's Chuck  Wagon Calhoun
I'm fixin' to tell ya'll a story 'bout a section of
Rail track out in the ol' west that to this day
be haunted by... the ol' steamer,
The Phantom Train Number 5!
YeeHaw Ya'll!
 
The Phantom Train Number 5
They say still makes the mountain run
Ain't no rhyme nor reason to it
It's cargo be souls every one!
 
Used to be a popular train
Afore all of it went away
Run from Newton to Mason
Way back in them oldern days
 
Hauled all sorts of goods from town to town
Had some passenger cars as well
But one day when the whistle blowed
Round the bend o'er the side it fell
 
The Phantom Train Number 5
Made the same run years and years
Never had trouble, not even one
'Til two trainmen caused the tears
 
Nobody figgered it out
Why it lurched and jumped the rail
Been the most dependable then
Until the day of its fail
 
But rumor said the engineer
Makin' time with the porter's frail
So's he jiggered the rails all up
So the train 'round the bend would fail
 
The Phantom Train Number 5
Done in by a jealous lover

Caused a bad predicament
Made human souls ghosts that suffer
 
Ran the line a few years after
Even went to them diesel trains
But 'twern't long they shut 'er down
Quit makin' monetary gains
 
Like a mist in the dark of night
The steamer pulls cars along
Full of the souls that died that day
As they moan and groan their sad song
 
The Phantom Train Number 5
Carries us dead on hellish ride
We have to do all over again
Each night oe'r the edge we slide!
 
Now that's a hell of a thing, ain't it?
Twern't them folks fault that engineer were
Playin' round with somebody else's gal!
Nope! Not fair to make them folks pay!
Oh, hell, 'tis all bullshit anyway!