Contributors:

Jonathan Chaffer

Kylee Dickey

Ben Hauck

Kasey Hicks

Robin Jamison

Aimee Pflieger

Some imagery in this song is fairly straightforward. The whole feel of the song is that of a train that is slowly starting up and reaching full speed, complete with the roar of the tracks and the accompanying whistle. The later verses may be meaningful, but they also may very well just be more and more obfuscated versions of the first two verses. It seems that John mixes up a word or two at a time until the song has a completely different topic. There is also some possible marriage imagery. Besides the title of the song, "train" could refer to the train of a wedding gown.

The theme of the song is most likely shyness and modesty. The singer seems to express that he wants to "see Mrs. Train," whatever that may mean, but he does not want to be the first to do so. He claims that this is an understandable attitude, and that patience is in fact virtuous. We find out eventually that others feel the same way, because nobody is first in line. The line has a missing head.

There are many possibilities of what "taking Mrs. Train's hand" may really mean. In keeping with the wedding theme earlier mentioned, some ideas are that a man is waiting to dance with a new bride at a wedding reception, that a man is about to be married but is getting cold feet, and that the song is about sex (think phallic symbols).