Come all you British loco men who travel the Iron Way, There’s a long weekend and money to spend, it’s time to draw your pay, You’ve done your 80-hour fortnight and now it’s time for play, So off with your dirty dungarees, your time is yours today.
We’ll give her some rock and we’ll beat the clock and send her on her way, For every train is an express train upon a Saturday.
The missus is standing at the door, your dinner is on the hob, So bung your driver’s ticket in, forget all about the job - Get dolled up in your Saturday best, the match’ll be starting soon, So hurry up mate and don’t be late - it’s Saturday afternoon.
We’ll give her some rock and we’ll beat the clock and send her on her way, For every train is an express train upon a Saturday.
There’s some that’s fond of gardening and some that like a gill, And some of the lads, they play the pools and sometimes make a kill. Some like a potato pie supper and an extra hour in bed, But everyone likes the moment when he signs off at the shed.
We’ll give her some rock and we’ll beat the clock and send her on her way, For every train is an express train upon a Saturday.
So come all you gallant loco men, steam and diesel too, You lads that serve the Iron Road, let’s drink a glass or two, And join me in the chorus, all you who like a tune - The railwayman’s friend is the long weekend - and Saturday afternoon.
So long to the driver’s lobby, so long the controller’s room, For while we’re here we can’t be there – on Saturday afternoon.
Open the cab roof I was breakfasting, so forth, and… the fitter-up when he came on the footplate he said what a beautiful morning, i’n’t it grand to be alive? Jack said… ‘It’s not finished yet’ After we’d had us breakfast we came off the shed in good time, so we could get our train ready, and if the Rowsley-Edgeley was late we could take us path in front of him, and get finished an hour earlier, but this Edgeley man was on time and he’s passed us like there, and the guard Fred Creamer and he said we’ll kail you again this morning and that was the guard that we hit, you see and we’d had him working up with us all week. Then we had to wait while the Rowsley-Edgeley got to the top of the bank and cleared Bibbington’s.
And we received the right-of-way signal and away we went.