Songfacts®:

• "Eastbound Train" was the first Dire Straits song to appear on a record. This was a live recording made at the Hope & Anchor public house - a well known London music venue - in November 1977; it went on the compilation album Front Row Festival.
• Described by Dire Straits biographer Michael Oldfield as "a straightforward boogie," it was also the B-side of "Sultans Of Swing." The song is an ode to an unnamed woman Mark Knopfler saw at New Cross station in South East London, who appears to have traveled the same route as him. After moving to the capital and joining a band, Knopfler undertook a teacher training course then secured a post as a lecturer at Loughton College, living in a rented flat at Buckhurst Hill. His brother David was sharing a flat with future Dire Straits bass player John Illsey at Deptford; he would eventually move in with them, but from the song it is evident that he was traveling home from Deptford, probably after rehearsing, taking the East London Line from New Cross, changing at Whitechapel to the District Line and then at Mile End where he would have picked up the Central Line to Buckhurst Hill. The woman appears to have boarded the same Central Line train, but got off sometime before him. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2