Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993 TAG: 9311100100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ The background
In less than a month, the historic first load of garbage will be dumped at the Roanoke Valley's new trash-transfer station on Hollins Road in Roanoke. There, it will be loaded onto a Norfolk Southern train and hauled 33 miles to the new Smith Gap Landfill in Roanoke County by a cherubic but determined small engine that chants, "It stinks this can, it stinks this can" as it chugs up the mountain.
Polite NS executives call it the Waste Line Express. It's the trash train.
The contest
Without a song, the trash train would be just another impersonal string of hoppers and a locomotive clouding the sky with diesel belches. There would be no emotional bond between the people who generate the garbage and the train that proudly clickety-clacks it out of sight.
Contestants will be asked to write the Official Trash Train Tune. Centuries from now, both Roanoke Valley residents still living here after the population exodus is complete will look up from hoeing the fields every time the trash train steams past, mop their brows of sweat generated at the only job they could find, and gently sing the lyrics written for this contest.
This song will do for some lucky winner's career what "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" did for Gordon Lightfoot, whatever that is.
\ The rules
Using one of the songs listed below, rewrite the lyrics - one verse and the chorus will be plenty - so the song will be about our trash train. You can sing your song unaccompanied; or you can beg the Kandinsky Trio to provide backup; or you can recruit friends and their kazoos, or your heavy metal band. Record it on a cassette tape. Be sure to include written versions of your lyrics.
Or you can mail just your written lyrics, and my staff guitarist/vocalist will perform them.
Here's the list of tunes you can use:
"I've Been Working on the Railroad"
"Wreck of the Old 97"
"Chattanooga Choo-Choo"
"Wabash Cannon Ball"
"City of New Orleans"
"Orange Blossom Special" (ha! that's a trick - that one HAS no lyrics!)
"John Henry"
"Casey Jones" (Grateful Dead version only)
\ The deadline
Mail it all to: Ed Shamy, Chief Engineer, RT&W-N Central, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010 by Nov. 30.
\ The judges
Will be highly qualified.
\ The prizes
You mean in addition to the fame and fortune that would fall to the author of the Official Trash Train Ditty? I'll scrape something together.
by CNB