July 1969.

When it’s cold and raining, and you really didn’t want to get out of a warm bed, there’s nothing like a jaunty musical interpretation of a train rhythm to make you feel like you’re already on the move. It’s kind of groovy really. Even if the weather isn’t!

The song was written by Graham Nash whilst on holiday in Morocco in 1966, on board a train from Casablanca to Marrakesh. Initially he was travelling in first class but found it, and I quote, “really fucking boring”. Instead, he decided to explore the train and was fascinated at what he saw. So much so that he wrote this song, which was pretty much a commentary on what was going on around him.

Nash was still with The Hollies at the time, who rejected the song for not being commercial enough. Following his departure from the band in 1968, Crosby, Stills and Nash were formed after a meeting at the home of either Cass Elliot or Joni Mitchell (there is some dispute amongst the band members as to whose house it actually was). 

The song appeared on their first, self-titled, album before being released as a single in July 1969. It reached number twenty-eight in the US and spent nine weeks on the UK chart, peaking at number seventeen.

The first public performance of the song was at Woodstock, in the wee small hours of 18 August, 1969.