In the “Coupling Process” thread, here in Prototype information for the modeler, a side discussion on our childhood TV shows that had Casey Jones as a TV personality, has broken out. This made me do some digging into the Real Casey Jones; or, Jonathan Luther Jones. I know that Casey Jones’ real locomotive was a 4-6-0, ten wheeler number 382 of the Illinois Central Railroad. (I actually had a Rivarossi model of this locomotive).
So, in the song about Casey Jones, was a 6-8 Wheeler a real type of locomotive; or, was this a figment of the song writer’s imagination?
I’ve heard that story too, Jim. I’ve often thought that the railroaders of the day were very familiar with 4-4-0’s, which were called “Americans” or “Eight-wheelers”. Could it be that these guys saw a 4-6-0 for the first time and thought of it as an enlarged eight-wheeler with an extra pair of drivers? Thus, a “6 - eight wheeler”? I agree that nobody seems to know for sure.
Curiously, the drawings of 382, published in the MR Cyclopedia (Kalmbach, 1960), shows 69" drivers. Of course, that doesn’t mean 68" drivers were never applied to the engine.
We would probably need the help of Marty McFly and Doc to find out for sure. “Dad, can I borrow the DeLorean?”
With some turning down to deal with wear issues, a 69" driver might shrink to 68". I dunno. One theory anyway.
On the other hand, song writers were never known to be sticklers for prototype accuracy. The words may have just flowed better with the music and sounded “right” enough to fit. Or it could be that Casey ran Moguls and Consolidations as a freight engineer before ascending to the passenger crew board and the abbreviated lyrics reference that.
This reminds me of the Grateful Dead’s “Jack Straw” were there’a reference to catching the “Great Northern out of Cheyenne…” I could nver figure that one out – the GN doesn’t go to Cheyenne – when I came across a different way of looking at the phrase. The travelers were actually catching a “Great Northern” boxcar as their ride out of Cheyenne.
I once heard a recording of a British skiffle band doing a rendition of the Orange Blossom Special. To introduce the song, the vocalist said the O. B. Spec. ran between Arkansas and Detroit. I could be misremembering this, but does it really matter? Whatever end points he mentioned were equally ludicrous.
ACY, of course, nothing discussed here on the Model Railroader Forums really matters. Since when is the relevance to mattering, important to what we talk about here?
The composer of the song “The Ballad of Casey Jones” was composed by an Engine Wiper who worked at the roundhouse where Casey worked out of, named Wallace Saunders. The composer was a railroad man. Therefore I would think he would use words in common use by railroad people of the day. “On the six-eight wheeler, boys, he won his fame”. However, it could be that the lyrics were changed over time and we really don’t know if these are the words Mr. Saunders came up with.
I had thought maybe a “6-8 Wheeler” was a known description of a locomotive, apparently not. So, like ACY stated, the topic of this thread really may be ludicrous!
I’ve seen reference to a 6-8 wheeler once in a book years ago. It might have been a caption to a photograph. It seems like it was a European designation, maybe a class designation, but it was being used for a 4-6-0. What we would call the ten wheeler. It stuck out to me because of the song. It was, and is, the only time I’ve seen that reference outside of the song.
I don’t remember what book I saw it in. It’s probably one I have, but a quick glance at those that have foriegn sections hasn’t produced the reference. Trying to search the internet hasn’t worked either.
I’m not sure though why a foriegn term would get used in an American song. Perhaps has the song evolved and was “polished” by professional song writers, someone had heard the term and used it. Perhaps it was used (commonly or regionally) at the time and over the years fell out of favor.
I have always been more curious about the “you got another pappa on the Salt Lake Line” phrase in the song (which Mrs Casey Jones tells her children to make them stop crying about Casey’s death). That line is not in all versions of the song, but curiously as a boy I had a children’s record of train songs (Casey Jones, Jawn Henry, Rock Island Line, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, etc) and on that record they included the “you got another pappa” line. I couldn’t make any sense out of it at the time (age 7 or so). I am sure if I asked my Dad he probably made something up.
One theory I read was that while the class of engines the 382 belonged to had 69" drivers for whatever reason the 382 itself had 68" drivers, and it stands to reason that in the roundhouse the guys in charge of putting on new tires onto those drivers would think of a unique engine in such terms. It makes a certain amount of sense but is pure speculation.
I don’t remember where I heard this, so I can’t document it: Somewhere I read that a song publishing outfit decided to “improve” on Wallace Saunders’ original lyric and added “you’ve got another poppa on the Salt Lake Line”. I think the publisher thought Casey was a fictional character, and therefore fair game. I heard that Casey’s widow sued the publisher and won; but the new lyric was already in wide circulation, so it persists. It’s something like saying something on Facebook: Once you’ve said it, you can’t put the Genie back in the bottle.
Saunders made up the song and played it for other railroaders and friends, who learned it and passed it along, until finally a couple of vaudeville guys named Seibert and Newton heard it, reworked it, and published it. Since they weren’t railroaders, it’s hard to say what changes they made, or what changes had happened over the years before they heard it. I do recall someone saying that in Canada or the U.K. at the time a “6-8 wheeler” would be an engine with six drivers and an eight wheel tender, but I don’t know if that’s correct?
FWIW back then engineers usually had assigned engines, and Casey’s was a 2-8-0 that had been displayed by IC at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where Casey worked on commuter trains bringing people to and from the fair. Somehow he managed to get IC to assign the engine to him after the fair ended.
On the night he died, Casey had finished his run and was called on to run another train pulled by the 4-6-0 he died in, when that engine’s engineer took ill. This was before the “hog law” limiting the time you could work; when the wreck happened, Casey had been on duty working for something like 18-20 hours straight.
Looks like a very nice version of Consolidation 638 could be made using the Rivarossi/AHM Casey Jones boiler & cab on a 2-8-0 mechanism. Drivers look to be about 57".
O.K. got the Ballad of Casey Jones looked at, now lets look at the Greatful Dead’s Casy Jones song. “Driven that Train, high on coc___, Casey Jones, you better watch yor speed”.
If she had been alive when that one came out, I have no doubt she’d have sued them too. But first, she’d have bashed Jerry Garcia over the head with his own guitar.
IC 382 was not John Luthur Jones’ regular locomotive. It just happened to be on the head end when Jones relieved a sick colleague. He usually ran IC 638, a 2-8-0 purchased at his request after he saw it at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893.
Not a song publisher, but a striker involved in a Southern Pacific shopworker’s labor dispute. When the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers refused to support them, that individual wrote, Casey Jones, the Union Scab, containing that, “You’ve got another poppa,” line.
The song also made unfavorable comparisons of the SP versus a number of competitors, including the, “Santa Fee.” Mrs. Jones wasn’t the only one who went after that song hammer and tongs.
As for the Grateful Dead, if Mrs Jones had still been around they would have been a lot more dead than grateful…
Chuck (Former Tennessee resident modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
If you go to the link for the song, there is also access to a video taking you from where the train started, to Vaughn Mississippi where the accident occurred. It’s an interesting story!
Since Wallace Saunders never copyrighted the song, it left the song open to changes and interpretations by other people. I had always been under the impression that the loco he wrecked in was his normal loco. It’s interesting that this story has become such a legend, almost like Paul Bunyan and other tall tales. However for the most part Casey’s story is pretty much true, 6-8 wheeler; or, not!
Although nothing more than coincidence, it is interesting that the 2-8-0 pictured has the ID number “638”…now if we can just find some line in the song that we could connect to the number 3 we’ll be able to claim the engine in the song was really his original mount!!! [:)]
