Would you ride a narrow gauge steam train with me?

-Do you like my poem about a Colorado narrow gauge steam train ride? (This is a question, folks! You can answer it! Yes, no, maybe or whatever.)



(This question was posted about a week ago and then deleted because some horse's butt reported it as a violation. This happened before I could choose a best answer. Please, if you answered this before, consider answering again. If you have not answered before, here's your chance.)



Coal Smoke in a Canyon



By Warren E. Domke



She鈥檚 big yet she鈥檚 small

Engine 476 is her name

Narrow Gauge is her track

Durango-Silverton her train



She wheezes and steams

She鈥檚 like a living thing

鈥淎ll aboard鈥?is the cry

And her bell starts to ring



Her whistle鈥檚 pure steam

And brings a tear to my eye

A sound that鈥檚 so pretty

Makes a railfan want to cry



She steams and she clanks

As she moves up the track

Blowing smoke in the air

Flowing up, flowing back



She鈥檚 just one of several

You just have to see 鈥榚m

Alive in their element

Not in some museum



Coal smoke in a canyon

The walls echo the sounds

Just nature outside us

There aren鈥檛 many towns.



鈥淎 columbine,鈥?I cry

As I look out the side

Quakie Aspens the trees

And through them we ride



Durango to Silverton

A ride from the past

45 miles in three hours

(She鈥檚 not very fast.)



But a wonderful day

A time we I have cherished

A steam engine alive

When others have perished.



Come ride on these rails

Woody Guthrie I see

But no boxcar this time

He鈥檚 in a yellow coach with me



Durango to Silverton

Narrow gauge is her track

I鈥檝e ridden it thrice

And can鈥檛 wait to go back.



(The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge is one of the last remnants of Colorado鈥檚 once vast network of three foot wide (narrow gauge) railroads. This line has operated for more than a century through some of Colorado鈥檚 most rugged and beautiful country. I recommend it for anyone with a love for trains or nature. I happen to love both.)This one chugs along in the manner of the 3'-0" gauge 2-8-2 Baldwin cited; I rode this run when it was still Durango & Rio Grande Western property. A distinctly different approach from the William D. Fries, Jr./Bernard F. Davis Jr. ad-song about the same line:



SILVERTON

Pub., American Gramophone, SESAC



which summarizes the history in the first verse.This is so clear. I feel as if I have been on the train with you.



Excellent stanza:



She鈥檚 just one of several

You just have to see 鈥榚m

Alive in their element

Not in some museum



.
I want to board your train at the station, the time has come to leave this place and go down the track

.

Alive with your engine Ch Ch Ch Ch Ch ch ch Ch ch ch faster faster down the track .. LOl

Great poetry Thank you
Sounds like a great trip.
I got on the train with the help of a gent

who loved fine whiskey. I helped him get bent

and he snuck me into a boxcar with Suede,

mare beyond compare, a filly high-grade.

We rode over grasslands spotted with hills.

The room next to mine was Jeffrey MacNeil's.

He had no clue of the surprise he had comin':

a visit from Juice, that notorious woman!

With Lucy waitin in Silverton and Angry Pete

so long gone down a dead-end street,

Miss LaSalle had decided she wanted to roam.

That's why she followed Jeffrey; now, had he known

she was next door he woulda knocked down the walls!

(Men get excited when Juice comes to call)





Hi! Been a long time! Still workin for the newspaper? Oh, you own the place now? Glad ta hear it!