The Gallopin' Goose

(album: Roses For Mama - 1977)

On a cold November morning
Back in nineteen-thirty-seven
With an early snow a-falling
On the three-foot tracks at Ames
Came a mighty strange contraption
Known to trainmen as a motor
But to folks in Colorado
She was known by another name

Up the canyons south of Sawpit
Past the red Cathedral spires
'Cross the yellow mountain switchbacks
And the rapids far below
On the high and lofty trestles
Near the fabled mines of Ophir
In the silver San Juan Mountains
Came a goose a-plowing snow

With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Running hot and on the loose
Came the Rio Grande Southern
The Galloping Goose
With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Running hot and on the loose
Came Number Five, The Galloping Goose

'Twas a four-door auto-mobile
On a dozen wheels of iron
Sixteen feet of rocking boxcar
Spot-welded to her tail
Loaded down with mercantile
Ten bags a' high-grade ore
Two mothers nursing babies
Seven miners an' the mail

Up the side a' Sunshine Mountain
By internal gas combustion
Eight Pierce-Arrow pistons pulling
Fifteen thousand pounds a' lead
At the snowshed on the summit
The conductor said his prayers
He declared a busted driveshaft
On the pass at Lizard Head

With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Running hot and on the loose
Came the Rio Grande Southern
The Galloping Goose
With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Running hot and on the loose
Came Number Five, The Galloping Goose

Down the three-percent to Rico
In the valley of Dolores
They still talk about the Southern
An' her flock of flying geese
From the roundhouse at Ridgway
To the depot at Durango
All the tracks are gone for scrap iron
And the ganders rest in peace

Up the canyons south of Sawpit
Past the red Cathedral spires
'Cross the yellow mountain switchbacks
And the rapids far below
On the high and lofty trestles
Near the fabled mines of Ophir
In the silver San Juan Mountains
There's a legend in the snow

With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Running hot and on the loose
Came the Rio Grande Southern
The Galloping Goose
With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Running hot and on the loose
Came Number Five, The Galloping Goose