Submitted by Clay Erps, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Idea posted November 12, 2007
While working on a unit of instruction on the Transcontinental Railroad for my M.A in Teaching, I wrote this song which is sung to the tune of "Deep In The Heart Of Texas." I shared it with a local music teacher and she suggested I share it with you. It is a song that should help kids remember some of the basic facts surrounding the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
- "Transcontinental Railway"
- (sung to the tune of "Deep In The Heart Of Texas")
- By: Clay Erps
- In eighteen hundred sixty two
- Thanks to ole crazy Judah
- The Congress passed a bill to build (the)
- Transcontinental Railway
- The Big Four of the Central tracks
- Started in Sacramento
- And headed east with Chinese packs
- Their task was monumental
- In Omaha, the Union trains.
- They started roaring westward
- Across the vast Nebraska plains
- And Rocky Mountain grandeur
- In Sixty Nine, the race they'd seen
- Would end in all its glory
- As Jupiter and One-nineteen
- Were joined at Promontory.
- Now east and west, from sea to sea,
- Were joined across the country,
- By golden spikes they drove into (the)
- Transcontinental Railway.