"The Wreck of the Old 97"

Steve come down that hill making 90 miles an hour,
His whistle begin to scream,
He was found in the wreck with his hand upon the throttle,
And scalded to death by the steam.

"The Wreck of the Old 97" (warning: 550kb QT audio) is a classic American folk song about a train crash, a song that somehow made a big, scary and permanent impression on me as a kid. I think I still have 3 or 4 versions of it (including punk!), but this is my favorite, a 1950 recording by a Southern street performer named Pink Anderson with a hard, raspy voice. The lo-fi "Gospel, Blues and Street Songs" album of Pink Anderson and New York's Rev. Blind Gary Davis linked on that page, from which this even-lower-fi sample comes, is one of my favorite folk albums. Details of the very true story of the wreck and lyrics quite similar to Pink's are here.

I've been singing it in the back of my head for the past five days, and now they've found the body of the young driver, just an insecure kid who made a bad judgment with such an enormous and terrible price that over a hundred souls had to pay.

I don't agree that it was indicative of some big problem. The railroads are extremely safe in large part because of their punctuality. If the kid made a bad call based on fear of repercussions, it just means that recruits should be reminded about priorities and get constant reinforcement from trainers, and definitely more seasoning time before they get behind the throttle.

Today I was back on JR for the first time since the big accident, and my express train from Kyoto through Osaka (and, yes, Amagasaki) was six minutes behind schedule, so there was much muttering amongst the passengers (although many trains get behind during Golden Week every year). Everyone was eager to get a glimpse of the driver as he pulled in to the station (reassuring veteran driver, whew).

Of course, the conductor had to make a very awkward announcement that "...passengers normally transferring to the Fukuchiyama line should transfer instead to the Hankyu Railway, as ours is not in service at this time."

I plugged in the headphone on my new cellphone and turned on the TV, but there's basically only one thing on TV these days, and the wrecked train was exactly the same make and color as the one I was on, so it was kind of meta and not amusing at all to watch the news. Shut off the TV and get out a book instead.