The poignant words of two-time Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Angela Johnson and striking images from fine artist Loren Long join forces in this heartbreaking yet uplifting picture book about a boy, his love for trains, and his adulation of one legendary engineer. Papa says it's the sound of leaving that speaks to my soul... A young black boy toils all day long on a cotton field where his one escape is watching the trains go by on the nearby tracks and imagining they're carrying him somewhere far away--maybe with Casey Jones at the helm. But when the boy loses his hero, will he lose his dream, too?