Chattanooga Choo Choo LIED to Me!
Jun. 11th, 2026 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerLately I've had an earwig of The Chattanooga Choo Choo, the 1941 song performed Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. Y'know, the Big Band Sound classic that goes
Anyway, I was singing the lyrics to myself the other day, and I choked after the second stanza.
So the first few lines of this stanza are okay. ...Though from Pennsylvania Station— which is in New York— to Baltimore (where the main station is also called Penn Station, BTW), likely with a few stops along the way, via 1940-era train, it's about 3 hours. So that must be a pretty engrossing magazine. 🤣 But the real problem comes with breakfast (presumably, for ham and eggs) in Carolina. That's where I choked on it.
Famous orchestra leader and musical liar Glenn MillerYou see, I lived and traveled the first 25 years of my life in the mid-Atlantic region. I was picturing the route on a map as I sang the lyrics to myself, and I was like, "WTF? You would not travel south from Baltimore to, say, Raleigh (or even Durham), then west to Chattanooga!"
There are two big problems with routing that way. One, that's way longer than traveling down the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and crossing directly into Tennessee at the state line town of Bristol. I fully understand that rails don't always traverse the shortest route between two points; costs of construction and operation matter a lot. But that's problem number Two: the route described in the song requires rails crossing the steep Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina. Not only is that route 200 miles longer, those miles are way more costly to traverse.
A quick Google search confirmed my objections. The actual train service from NYC to Chattanooga, TN did pass through Baltimore but then jogged west, over to the Shenandoah Valley, then followed that southwest through Virginia and across the border into Tennessee. It followed the same route as modern day interstate I-81. It never entered North Carolina.
As a historical note, the original interstates were often built along the same routes as railroads through mountain passes. That's why the route the rail followed in 1940 looks a lot like the route you'd drive today. That's also why I-40, which does cross through the mountains of western NC, was one of the last of the originally planned interstates to be completed.
BTW, this breakfast-in-Carolina lie isn't the only falsehood Glenn Miller peddled in his famous song. 🤣 That "Track 29!" call-response in the first stanza? In 1940 Pennsylvania Station had only Tracks 1-21. And among the three trains that went to /through Chattanooga, none departed at 3:45. 💩
Pardon me, boyI'm not sure why this song has been stuck in my head the past few days. I've never been a fan of Big Band music. My partner's dad was, though, and she has some of the classics from that era loaded on her music player. Maybe that's where I heard it.
Is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?
Yes, yes (Track 29!)
Boy, you can give me a shine
Anyway, I was singing the lyrics to myself the other day, and I choked after the second stanza.
You leave the Pennsylvania station about a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina
So the first few lines of this stanza are okay. ...Though from Pennsylvania Station— which is in New York— to Baltimore (where the main station is also called Penn Station, BTW), likely with a few stops along the way, via 1940-era train, it's about 3 hours. So that must be a pretty engrossing magazine. 🤣 But the real problem comes with breakfast (presumably, for ham and eggs) in Carolina. That's where I choked on it.
Famous orchestra leader and musical liar Glenn Miller
There are two big problems with routing that way. One, that's way longer than traveling down the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and crossing directly into Tennessee at the state line town of Bristol. I fully understand that rails don't always traverse the shortest route between two points; costs of construction and operation matter a lot. But that's problem number Two: the route described in the song requires rails crossing the steep Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina. Not only is that route 200 miles longer, those miles are way more costly to traverse.
A quick Google search confirmed my objections. The actual train service from NYC to Chattanooga, TN did pass through Baltimore but then jogged west, over to the Shenandoah Valley, then followed that southwest through Virginia and across the border into Tennessee. It followed the same route as modern day interstate I-81. It never entered North Carolina.
As a historical note, the original interstates were often built along the same routes as railroads through mountain passes. That's why the route the rail followed in 1940 looks a lot like the route you'd drive today. That's also why I-40, which does cross through the mountains of western NC, was one of the last of the originally planned interstates to be completed.
BTW, this breakfast-in-Carolina lie isn't the only falsehood Glenn Miller peddled in his famous song. 🤣 That "Track 29!" call-response in the first stanza? In 1940 Pennsylvania Station had only Tracks 1-21. And among the three trains that went to /through Chattanooga, none departed at 3:45. 💩
