Billy Bragg and Joe Henry travel to railway city of York with railroad songs

Winding along 2,728 miles of track over four days, the transatlantic troubadours recorded classic railroad songs in waiting rooms and at the trackside while the train paused to pick up passengers.

The resulting album, Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad, was released through Cooking Vinyl last September. Now, Barking bard Bragg, 59, and North Carolina songwriter and producer Henry, 56, are embarking on their Shine A Light tour, alighting in the railway city of York on Tuesday to play songs from the journey and favourites from each back catalogue at the Grand Opera House.

A last-minute call to "Bragg Central" yesterday established the duo would be travelling by road, rather than rail, hopping on board a tour bus when the romance of the British railways is being stretched beyond breaking point by fare increases, crammed carriages and industrial action.

Nevertheless, Bragg's love of our railways remains undimmed, not least here in York. "The National Railway Museum is one of my favourite museums in the world," says Billy, who last played the Grand Opera House on the second leg of Hope Not Hate Tour in December 2006. "It's the size of the engines that strikes you, which you don't get to see unless you stand next to them.

"The railways had such a huge, transformative effect on human existence. The automobile and the aeroplane only came about through the invention of trains, and that's why there are so many railroad songs."

In America, maybe, but they are less common in Britain. "Here's my theory on that," starts Billy. "We have songs that deal with the same themes and issues of travel, escape from a love affair or a crime, or bringing people together, but our songs that deal with that tend to be sea stories.

"In America, you can escape jurisdiction just by getting on a train, but you can't really do that in the UK, whereas you could escape by sea because of the Empire.

"I spoke to a bloke at the museum [the NRM] about this a couple of years ago, when we talked about how rail songs over here are about building the railways; the navvy songs. Whereas in America the railroad songs are about freedom."

Billy Bragg and Joe Henry: shining a light on railroad songs

Bragg and Henry's Shine A Light album has its roots in a book that Bragg has been writing. "It's about British music going from being jazz based to guitar based and hinged on Lonnie Donegan releasing Rock Island Line in 1956: a Lead Belly song, which he'd first played with the Chris Barber Jazz Band in 1954, just weeks after Elvis Presley recorded That's All Right in America.

"It'll be coming out in June and it's called Roots, Radicals And Rockers: How Skiffle Changed The World, because Lonnie Donegan was into his roots music, as so many jazz musicians were, trying to get back to basics, getting back to a raw sound, in the same way that Dr Feelgood and The Ramones wanted to get back to rock'n'roll roots when they emerged in the Seventies."

Turning his thoughts again to America's railroads, Billy says: "The railroads have connected America in a much more real way than the internet has in the past 20 years. The thing about the railroad is that Americans can rely on it everyday and that's the paradigm that's led to so many railroad songs being written.

"That's why Joe and I wanted to take the songs back to the railroads, rather than just going into a studio, as we though the best thing to do was record them in situ, which would be a lot more organic."

Freight trains rule over passenger trains both in number and priority of movement in the United States. "When you're on the passenger train you have to fit in with the rhythm of the day, giving way to freight trains, which is reflected in the rhythm of the songs," says Billy.

"Like getting into San Antonio and having time to find a place to record while waiting to set off again, but you had to keep your eye on the conductor as you don't want to have to wait for another 48 hours for the next train.

"Or the first station we stopped at, St Louis, where the station forecourt was a long way from the platform, so we recorded on the platform, which you can hear on the record. For those around us, it was no big deal that two guys were playing at a railway station because they're used to people busking there."

Bragg and Henry have worked together on previous projects, not least Henry producing Bragg's last album, 2013's Tooth & Nail, and now they have bonded anew over the railroads. Next stop? "I hope to take Joe to the National Railway Museum while we're in York," says Billy.

Billy Bragg and Joe Henry's Shine A Light tour arrives at Grand Opera House, York, on Tuesday, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york