I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
I’ve been working on the railroad
All the live long day
I’ve been working on the railroad
Just to pass the time away
Can’t you hear the whistle blowing
Rise up so early in the morn
Can’t you hear the whistle blowing
Dinah, blow your horn
This well-known American folk song was first published in 1894 in a Princeton University songbook. Its origins are tangled in American cultural memory—blending elements of African American spirituals, 19th-century minstrel shows, and working-class labor songs. The cheerful tune belies its historical context, which included dangerous and exploitative conditions for railroad workers, especially Black laborers and immigrants. The popular “Dinah” verse added later also carries racialized imagery tied to minstrel traditions.
While widely sung in classrooms and campgrounds, the song is a romanticized version of American expansionism—celebrating industry while erasing the hardship and human cost behind the railroads that connected the country.
Working the Orphan Railroad
I’ve been working the Orphan Railroad,
All the livelong day.
I’ve been working the Orphan Railroad,
Just to give these kids away.
Can’t you hear the Spirit calling,
Rising early with the dawn?
Can’t you hear the Master calling,
“Servant, open your home.”
Between 1854 and 1939, the Orphan Train Movement relocated over 250,000 children from overcrowded cities on the East Coast to rural towns across the Midwest. These children were often labeled “orphans,” though many had one or both parents still living but trapped in poverty, addiction, or incarceration. While some children were placed with caring families, many others were treated as free labor, neglected, or abused.
Working the Orphan Railroad reimagines the original folk song as a lament. The rhythmic repetition and work-focused language remain, but now the “railroad” is a system—not of steel and steam, but of case files and quiet grief. A system that moves vulnerable children like cargo.
And yet, the second stanza shifts the tune again. It reminds us that the Spirit is still calling—and so is the Master. Not to build more systems, but to open more homes. To see the orphan not as a burden to relocate, but as a life to receive.
This isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a warning and a witness. The Church must hear the whistle blowing. “Servant, open your home.”
