This tune is a railroading classic inspired by the tragic September 27, 1903 crash of Southern Railway’s train 97, a mail train nicknamed “Fast Mail.” En route from Monroe, Virginia, to Spencer, North Carolina engineer Joseph Broady was going too fast (since the train was running an hour late and he had been instructed to get to Spencer on time) and the train went off the rails on the curve leading into the Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, VA. You can read more details of the wreck as well as song authorship disputes on Wikipedia, as well as this page and this page.

Here’s the Osborne Brothers picking it: