What is that noise?  
What’s that thar ruckus?  
What’s this putrid could o’ black smoke a comin’ from?  
What’s this here device they call the steam engine?  
Aw, don’t pay it no heed.  It’ll never amount to much I reckon.  

What is that sound?  
What is that mechanical drumming?  
It’s the sound of the iron horse forging a new nation beneath her wheels,
Conquering the wild and stormy peaks of the rockies.  
Promontory point, Utah; two sides of this great continent are united.  

What is that sound?  
What is that great clock, the railroad?  
The whistle sounds in every town,
and ol’ dependable is right on time - as usual.  

Listen to that sound!  
How does she go so fast?  
Is that a locomotive or a rocket?  
What sleek mechanical artistry has been used to cause America’s coming of age.  
The great vehicle of progress goes forward faster than ever.  

What is that sound?  
What is that lonely, wild, rhythmic breath of steam chests?  
The great machines of progress moved on, and she who brought them was left behind.  
She lives out her last days, a memory rolling on big driving wheels.  
Hear how ghostly her moaning whistle whines.  

Where is that sound?  
Where’s that melancholy whine from which all the earth once got their lives?  
“Them hills is quiet now, and I ‘lone remember,
That was before they ripped our depot down.”  
If we don’t know where we came from, what do we know?  

What was that sound?  
It was the sound of America’s faithful locomotives,
Flying past like a lightning limited,
150 years or more in their train,
Now gone and sealed in a long black tunnel called history.