[Verse]

On a cold and rainy night, I was sitting in the light

Of my switchman shack at my post on the mountain

The storm was pretty bad and the telephone was dead

But it was just eleven hours till the dawn

Then much to my surprise, the telegraph jumped into life

As I read the code, I thought, "Could this be true?"

A train was on its way, headed up the mountain grade

But she didn't have no engineer or crew

At the other switch, they tried

To put her on the mountainside

But she kept on coming up the mountain grade

Well, I quickly dowsed the light to try to see into the night

Maybe I could spot her headlight in the rain

She was pounding down below, I could hear her whistle blow

And I thought, "Lord, that's a high and mournful sound"

Then the telegraph again: "there's a cave-in at the mine

And a hundred men are buried 'neath the ground"

Lord, she's coming now I see round the bend and straight at me

And her boiler is glowing red as coal in hell

The headlight switching wide, searching all the mountainside

But the only sound she's making is a wail

Then I recognized the train by the number and the name

It's the Miners' Silver Ghost 0-40-1

Then she vanished up the track by the lonely switchman shack

Like a mother who was looking for her son

Now I heard the story how an engine went to glory

Over fifty years ago on the same line

It was steaming for a cave-in

There were men who needed saving

But it missed the curve and trestle near the mine

And every now and then, you'll hear her whistle on the wind

If a mountain slides and many men are lost

It's a high and lonely wailin'

Searching up and down the mountain

She's the train they call the Miners' Silver Ghost

The train they call the Miners' Silver Ghost

The train they call the Miners' Silver Ghost