Timeless Lines To a Locomotive

The following poem, a "prophetic tribute," written by Hon. William D. Lewis of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was composed around 1840, a dozen years after the first railroad in America. It was first published in the Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia) and reprinted in Trains magazine's December 1964 issue on page 35. While technology has changed all but the most basic concept of the railroad in the 177 years since, and time itself has rendered the verse archaic, the imagery and themes are vivid and timeless and just as easily apply to the railroads of Colorado today.

Lines To A Locomotive
by Hon. William D. Lewis

Sublimest courser of the plain,
Whom toil can neither daunt, nor tire,
Onward thou bear'st thy lengthened train, 
With iron nerves and lungs of fire.

Boldest exploit of daring man,
Whose restless and impatient mind,
Infringes nature's general plan,
And leaves with thee the winds behind.

No match for thee in airy race,
The eagle, borne on sounding winds,
Envying he views thy lightning pace,
Most wondrous of earth's wondrous things.

As some bright meteor of the sky, 
Or some unsphered and shooting star,
Thou, locomotive, seems to fly,
Beheld by dazzled eyes afar.

Science and skill their aid impart,
Trained, hills to level, valleys rear,
Thy pathway smoothed by laboring art,
To urge thee in thy swift career.

On then, majestic, mighty steed,
Speed thy fast flight from clime to clime,
To thee,the glorious task decreed,
To cancel space, to vanquish time. ⚒

Poem From the End of the Era of Steam

From David P. Morgan's Trains Magazine in February 1963, a poem from what was the already fading era of steam by William F. Bradbury, titled...

The Express Passes

The original as it appeared in Trains

Dim in the distance a waver of light,
A murmur, a hum, a confusion of sound,
The shriek of a whistle far-piercing the night,
An electrical throbbing and thrill in the ground;

A widening glare o'er the glittering snow,
The fire from a flaming red orb of an eye,
A roaring and rumbling that gather and grow,
A vomit of rolling black smoke to the sky;

A singing of steel, and a crashing of crank,
A hissing of steam shot out in a blast,
A whistle's hoarse scream, and the iron's harsh clank,
And the huge, swaying monster goes thundering past!

A swirling of snow in a fine, stinging spray,
A buzzing of rails, growing fainter -- now gone,
The clang of a bell dying quickly away
A glimmer of light, and the train rushes on.

                                              -- William F. Bradbury

What a vivid picture! Whether through the mountains or rolling out on the plains, this prose is a clear reminder that such beasts roamed the rails of Colorado and the nation in ages past.⚒