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"The Wreck of the Number Nine" is an American train song, part of the subgenre about
train wrecks. It was written by Carson Robison in 1927.
As in most of the train wreck songs, it tells the story of a brave engineer who takes his train out on a stormy night after kissing his sweetheart goodbye, promising to marry her the next day, but he is killed in a head-on collision with another train. Unlike some other songs in the "train wreck" subgenre, it is not based on a real incident and it does have a known author. Possibly the best-known recorded version is by Jim Reeves, although it has been sung by several other singers. Jim Reeves' introduction for the song: This is a song coming from The Hills of Kentucky in the coal-mining country. They used to bring out these dinky little trains, you know. They were always jumping the track and this is the story of one of them. It's "The Wreck of the Number Nine".Other train wreck songs in this collection are: "The Altoona Freight Wreck" |