"New River Train" is an old-time song known in Western North Carolina and Southwestern Virginia in D Major. The melody is a "Blue Ridge Mountain standard" and bluegrass favorite. The original "New River Train" song was claimed by the Ward family of Galax as part of their repertoire as early as 1895. The song was believed to refer to the train that ran on the New River Line in 1883 as part of the Norfolk and Western system serving the town of Fries until 1985. It has been recorded numerous times since the first recorded version by guitarist Henry Whitter in 1924. Subsequent recordings were by Kelly Harrell in 1925 (backed by a ‘string band’ made up of New York City studio musicians, Sid Harkreader a bit later in 1925 (playing guitar to accompany his vocal, rather than playing his fiddle) and several different recordings by Vernon Dalhart. It was also recorded by Ernest Stoneman with the Sweet Brothers on July 9th, 1928 (who was inspired by Whitter to record) and two more versions by Harrell, in 1925 and 1926. A recorded oddity was the 1927 version of the song in the key of ‘G’ by the South Georgia Highballers (released as “Green River Train”) who used a musical saw as accompaniment. Nearly all early versions were set in the key of ‘D’, although it is ocassionally heard in ‘G’. It was also recorded by The Monroe Brothers (a reissue of the original 1936 recording), Tommy Jarrell on Pickin' on Tommy's Porch (1984)(Learned from the playing of his father, fiddler Ben Jarrell), Mark Graham on Natural Selections (1987), Mike Seegar and Paul Brown on Down in North Carolina and Doc Watson, Pete Seeger, Fred Price & Clint Howard. Another version of the song is called "Honey Babe" and differs only in the chorus. It was printed in Pete Seeger's American Favorite Ballads (1961).