Transcontinental
The construction of the railroad in rhyme
It was at least six months by land
200 days to sail around
Where 30,000,000 buffalo
used to trample the virgin ground
It was 18 hundred 65
when Abe Lincoln signed his Hancock
The transcontinental railroad
would improve distance versus clock
Should we harken back to Donner
Remember George and his brother???
20,000 more had perished
along one trail or another
Now veterans and immigrants
and laborers like you and I
Hammered in each piece one by one
so the choo choo train can go by
Exaggerating some corners
and milking the geography
These men were paid in acreage
a little more through dishonesty
Working each angle for profit
no different than they’d do today
It took quite a few hammer swings
just to lay that cowboy’s freeway
Theodore Judah took the reigns
across our favorite mountain range
The old Sierra Nevadas
again can take the center stage
7,500 feet up there
and a bitch almost half the year
The iron cuts right through the rock
which risks many asian man’s rear
It was cheaper to import grunts
and dynamite is unstable
Than collect American men
who were not as expendable
The progress sometimes inches a day
and many, many workers died
Just preparing for safe passage
where the rest of mankind can ride
The day came when they’d conquer
and speed up to six miles a day
Link by link and each railroad tie
Heading toward Utah anyway
On May 10th 1869
our first train track had been complete
The journey is cut to six days
some years before pouring concrete
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