James Baquet

We have met several legendary “Big Men”: Paul Bunyan the Lumber Jack, Pecos Bill the Cowboy, and so on. But one such story is as much fact as fiction: Casey Jones, the Railway Engineer.

“The Ballad of Casey Jones” tells how Jones learned that another engineer couldn’t come to work, so Casey would have to do a double shift. He agreed, if African-American Sim Webb, his regular “fireman,” could also work with him. So he “started on his farewell journey to the promised land.”

They started out behind schedule, so Jones asked Webb to stoke the boiler as hot as possible, to allow for more speed. It was a rainy night, but they had gained time and were only two minutes late when up ahead they saw a freight train sitting on the track!

Slowing as much as he could, Jones told Sim to jump. But he “died at the throttle/With the whistle in his hand,” leaving behind a wife and three children.

Surprisingly, the “ballad” is almost entirely accurate. John Luther “Casey” Jones (1863-1900) was a real locomotive engineer, and he really did die in circumstances as described in the song, which even mentions the time of the crash — “At 3:52 that morning came the fateful end” — a time which is known because his watch stopped at the time of impact.

They were nearly on schedule at the time of the crash. At one point he said of the engine, “Sim, the old girl’s got her dancing slippers on tonight!” But as Jones was approaching a station at about 121 kilometers per hour, they saw the trains sitting on the track, and Jones told Webb to jump. He flew 91 meters and was knocked unconscious.

Jones reversed the throttle and slammed on the brakes, slowing to only 64 kilometers per hour at the moment of impact. He was killed instantly, but there were no other serious injuries — all the more amazing because he was operating a passenger train!

The song was first sung and whistled by Wallace Saunders, a friend of Jones, as he cleaned engines. Other railroad men heard it and repeated it, until one shared it with his brother, a vaudeville performer. It was sung in theaters around the country until it was copyrighted, published, and sold starting in 1909.

Casey Jones has been an American folk legend ever since.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. right away;

2. train engine;

3. legally protected;

4. live theater;

5. hit hard;

6. device for heating water;

7. feed coal into;

8. went backward;

9. goods; cargo;

10. engine controller