I recall as a boy we would hop the freights   Wasn't nothin' but a kick back then   There was no better thrill for my anxious heart   Than a long flatcar   Headin' out of the yard   And I knew even then she was in my blood   Like the time when I first hired on   And the fireman laughed at my bony nose   But he tossed me a cap   Said gm&o   And I was a man...      I gave her my best years   Well, what can you do but laugh   I don't expect she'll ever be coming back      When we climbed up the great appalachians   Her engines would be raging like hell   Then we'd come back down to the rising towns   Where the cattle stare   In the frozen air   For me there nothing more sacred   Than the beautiful sound she'd make   Her long blue signal blowin' deep in the night,   It would get to me there,   It would get to me there   Now I'm afraid...      Afraid of these silent hours   Awake underneath my old cap   I don't expect she'll ever be coming back      Well, I watched the beginning of the end for her   When I saw my first jet airplane   Flying high overhead like a bird of prey   While the mighty fell   In the land of the brave   Now I'm alone.