The Iron Horse
Across your last horizon     And into the lonely dawn Your smoke bedarkened silhouette     Parades and then is gone.		We loved your gay cavorting     And we feared your strength and roar, We had you fetch our loved ones home     When woe knocked at our door.
We're Silent as we watch because     We know you'll not come back For in your wake a diesel now     Hums proudly down the track.		Good-bye, old clumsy giant     With your grimy grease and smoke Good-by, old faithful friend of man,     From us old fashioned folk.
Gone is your friendly whistle     From the lonely sleepless night, Gone is your growl and chatter,     Pulling trains with all your might.		The hand upon your throttle     Built a nation, made it bold, Won its wars and fed its children     And was good to young and old.
Gone is your steam unfolding     Into clouds above the train Tinged red in winter's sunset     As you fled across the plain.		- Tom of Turkey Valley
		Reprinted from Arch Ward's "In the Wake of the News" column of the Chicago Trubune

Steam-Engine Whistle
Listen, my Grandson -- just     beyond the hill It lifts its lonesome voice and     wails once more, A sound with heartbreak in it,     tired and shrill; A sound a million boys have     heard before, And in the nighttime they     have raised their heads Just as you're doing now, and     felt a strange Wonder catch hold of them     in their safe beds, Till the sound sped far off and     out of range. It was a sound to part the     buffalo grass Long years ago; a sound with     history in it. Baltimore, Kansas City,     Donner Pass . . . . Listen, my grandson, listen for     a minute, And then remember always, if     you can. It will be gone forever, when     you're a man.
- Ladies Home Journal