Ballad of John Axon

[shed driver]

Back in the late 1950s Ewan McColl (father of Kirsty McColl) and Peggy Seeger produced a series of radio ballads - audio documentaries set to music, speech, sound effects and interviews.

The first (and most famous) of these was "The Ballad of John Axon" telling the story of a train driver who was killed in a train crash when the steam brake pipe fractured in the cab of his locomotive filling the cab with scalding steam. Axon stayed at the controls as the heavy freight train ran away down the steep slope into Chapel en le Frith. It's about an hour but a great listen.



SD.

[Yertis]

I first heard this in about 1980. It is indeed excellent.

[100SRV]

I'm sure we were told this story at primary school, it's so familiar when I read the background to the name. Some brave people in that incident, RIP.

[Quhet]

The ballad was in a book on trains I had when I was a lad. Heroic chap