Trains – Miles, Morningtown and Mountains…

This morning we’re going to Paris… train from Lowestoft to London,  Eurostar from London to Paris… My brother Chris lived in France for most of his life. It’s the first time we’ve been to see our French relations since Chris died last year…   

I’m reminded of three train songs…

If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I have gone, You will hear the whistle blow five hundred miles…’ I remember Peter, Paul and Mary singing ‘Five Hundred Miles’

It’s a modified version of the traditional American folk song “Nine Hundred Miles”… about people struggling, forced to leave their homes… far away from home, longing to return. Some believe that it’s about unemployed men who stowed away in trains during the Great Depression, hoping to find work elsewhere…

Train whistle blowing, makes a sleepy noise, Underneath the blankets go all the girls and boys…’ I remember the Seekers singing Morningtown Ride…

It’s sung as a lullaby, about children travelling on a train to go to sleep, watched over by the driver, fireman, sandman…

Perhaps it’s a picture of something else… Some suggest it’s a picture of our journey through life, through sunshine and rain to ‘Morningtown; some suggest that ‘Morningtown’ could be heaven…

‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes…’ I thought that this children’s song was originally a song of American railroad workers during the late nineteenth century.  

Some say it’s about the Underground Railroad – a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the nineteenth century, used by African American slaves to escape into free states and Canada.

The song was originally published as the Hymn “When the Chariot Comes”. The “she” in the song is the chariot, driven by Jesus, returning, to bring freedom.

As we travel on Eurostar we shall look forward to meeting our family. I’ll remember train rides as pictures of travelling life’s miles… safely till Morningtown… round the mountains… with Jesus to our final destination.