Chatanooga Choo Choo

[Jstanovic]

Just thought you guys would like this link to the Andrew Sisters singing this song!

 

[Tumbleweed]

:hi:

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

That is neat, but do keep in mind that Chattanooga is spelled with two "T 's":

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

well now, no wonder you got it wrong, the original is wrong. I was not able to access it until now.

 

[George Harris]

Their geography has some errors. The train that would most likely be the real train for this would be the Pelican. The Birmingham Special might also fill the bill, but I don't think it ever had through equipment to/from New York City. However, neither of these ever turned a wheel in the Carolinas.

 

[xyzzy]

It's literary license by the song's lyricist, Mack Gordon who wrote many other popular songs back then. Routing a NY-Chattanooga train via "Carolina" is doable but wouldn't have made sense. From the perspective of Southern, the train would operate through Asheville (from Greensboro or Salisbury) or Atlanta. Either path is far longer than via Bristol. And would the train terminate in Chattanooga -- difficult to imagine -- or continue on to New Orleans or Memphis?

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I, as a native Chattanoogan, have no problem with the poetic license of going through the Carolinas And I do not necessarily think it implies that the train itself actually terminated in Chattanooga,

All of them, the Pelican, Tennessean and BHM Special had through sleepers from New York depending on the year

But the song says it left New York at "a quarter till four".. Well, the Birmingham Special left DC in the 3.45 or 3.50 slot for years. So a little poetic license between the two cities has always told the tale for me.

I have felt it was the BHM Special from grade school days when we would put my sister on either it or on the Pelican to go off to school in Alabama