Johnny B. Broderick explains how one of singer Seán Keane’s best loved songs originated on a train travelling between New York City and Chicago

It was February 2014 and I was on tour with Seán Keane in America. We had just done a concert in New Jersey and my next stop was Chicago.
I could have flown but I had read about sleeper trains and I fancied seeing the countryside from the warmth of a train with big views of the Hudson and the Great Lakes.

The train was scheduled to depart Penn station in New York at 3.30 p.m. and arrive in Chicago sixteen hours later, at 7.30 a.m. the following morning.
I remember it was very cold and the wind making its way through the high rises of NYC was sharp and severe.
I had heard on CNN that there was snow promised later in the day. The east coast had about a week of severe frost and the snow ploughs had been deployed a few times already to keep the traffic moving.

There was a long queue for the train. A lady beside me had a large suitcase, about four foot high on wheels, it was tight getting it down along the carriage but a stranger helped her raise it up above her seat, much to the disapproval of the conductor who wanted her to leave it at the other end of the carriage.
I took my recliner seat ideal for sleeping and settled into my journey to Chicago. In front of me a relationship was blossoming before my eyes as the train started out on its journey north along the Hudson until it reached the Great Lake Eerie, and then west to Chicago.
Hence the title North-West line.

This couple who met for the first time when he volunteered to store her suitcase were now in full conversation across the aisle of the train. Everyone could hear the chat as they quickly gave their life stories to each other. There was an age gap, as he was probably fifteen to twenty years older than her.
Once we left the station the snow started to come in and got heavier.
The sharpness of the air on the streets of New York could now be felt in the carriage.

About an hour later we had our first scheduled stop in a town called Poughkeepsie on the banks of the Hudson with a footbridge over the frozen river. I looked out in amazement at families and their dogs walking on a frozen river in February. Memories of stories about my father came to mind when he cycled across the frozen grey lake of Loughrea in 1947, when Ireland was stuck in a big freeze that lasted almost ten weeks that spring. Images of Pocahontas and John Smith came to mind as I watched this romantic place and the love story unfolding in front of me.

By now he had crossed the aisle into her row, aware maybe that their voices carried the length of the carriage.
Just outside Poughkeepsie the train came to a standstill, the blizzard was bringing with it snow drifts and had blocked the track.
The conductor went around apologetic for the delay and offered blankets to people who were getting cold, the new couple with love in their eyes got one to share, and like magic two strangers were snuggled together less than two hours after meeting.

This really was love at first sight. It was inspiring and emotional.

Darkness fell as we waited for the snow to be cleared by some kind of a service engine with a snow blower that went ahead of us.
It began to move slowly during the night and the slow rhythms of steel on steel made me think of one of my favourite classical pieces, Bolero by Ravel.

That put another link into my head, a Seán Keane fan once told me that he knew the Zamboni driver who smoothed the ice for Torvill and Dean in Sarajevo, in 1984.

Continue reading in this year’s Christmas Annual