Have you
ever heard the story old -timers tell
About a locomotive called O 'Nell?
And how she took her farewell ride
Down the Colorado mountainside.
One day deadhead and
she ran out of coal
her brakes went dead an
d she began to roll
When she got up to 80 per
the engineer began to
sing to her
Run for the
roundhouse Nelly
your puffin days are through
Brakes won't hold and your
boilers cold,
but we're going in with you
That train whistlin' for the tunnel
is number nine, no doubt
If we meet inside and start
a mountain slide,
there'll be ten years diggin' us out
If you don't slow
down at Union Town,
old gal, it's in the cards
There'll be a new back door
in the roundhouse
an d a new track
leavin' the yard
On through the fields we'll travel,
but if you take the sky,
we'll be leavin' you on the P .D .Q. singin' goodbye,
Nellie, goodbye.
Here's a marvelous story
of that ride to glory.
The fireman hollered to
the engineer,
I've been your coaler now for thirty years,
in one more run we got a pension due,
and the way she's rollin' Ellie knows it
too. Some cattle crossin' on the track that day,
they had no business on the right of way,
A lone cow punch us at and shook his fist
Cryin' come back now there's a
heifer you missed
They made the trestle down at Riverside
It started swayin' and the fireman cried
This ain't no place for us to
wash our face
Gonna shed my heavy
denim just in case
A section foreman saw
them flyin' through
He said we better get the wreckin' crew
They stood bare -headed,
threw their shovels down, sang,
an d there goes Nellie on her last
go -round
Hug the rails at Canyon Cross,
and gal, it's good to be alive
The bottom's four miles
down if we roll it,
and it's two straight
down if we dive
No man alive has ever seen
railroad engines fly
Nellie's hollering freight
through the golden gate
in the sweet by -and -by
In the sweet by -and -by