A train that will house members of Old Crow Medicine Show, Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros sits idle at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland during the Railroad Revival Tour on April 22, 2011. Photos: Roman Gokhman/STAFF.

This story originally appeared in the Oakland Tribune.

OAKLAND — The large posse – consisting of band members from London folk-rockers Mumford & Sons, Southern California band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Nashville country and bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show – had yet to see or set foot on their mode of transportation for the next week until they arrived at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland.

Before the bands were allowed onto the 1,500-foot-long, 13-car train with vintage streamlined silver 1948 California Zephyr cars, they had to take a safety briefing: “Don’t lean out of the train, don’t touch the wheels.”

That this tour is even happening makes the safety briefing bearable to Mumford instrumentalist Ben Lovett and Edward Sharpe trumpet player Stewart Cole and guitarist Christian Letts.

“Honestly, it was kind of a pipe dream,” Letts said just before the Oakland show. “The budget for this is stratospheric.”

“I think this is more expensive than having 15 airplanes,” Cole joked.

The rail tour was the idea of Edward Sharpe frontman Alex Ebert, who enlisted his Mumford and Old Crow friends.

“We’ve all been talking about this idea for a while,” Lovett said.

The bands agreed there would be no headliners. Each would have equal stage time and each would join the others during their sets. Mumford & Sons plays last at most of the tour stops, which after Oakland include San Pedro, Chandler, Ariz.; Marfa and Austin, Tex.; and New Orleans.

“It doesn’t really matter who plays last,” Lovett said. “Everyone’s going to be getting on stage for the same time. It might be bad to go on last, because everyone’s going to be drunk by then.”

While on their journey, the bands plan to bond over meals, card games and music. All will write and record music along the way, hoping to inspire new directions for each. One car on the train is loaded with instruments so the bands can have impromptu jam sessions along the way.

The tour and the trek will be filmed for a documentary – maybe. Cole said a filmmaker had a huge plan of what he wanted to create, but after spending a day with the bands he threw his plan out the window.

“You can’t organize a band, especially not three bands,” Lovett joked.

All of the bands are familiar with 1970s Festival Express Tour, a train trek across Canada with the Grateful Dead, The Band and Janis Joplin. But Letts said that tour did not influence the Railroad Revival Tour.

“We just wanted to travel around and do something different rather than play traditional venues,” he said.

While the tour was Ebert’s idea, the best known of the three bands is Mumford & Sons, which is one of the popular bands on the planet right now. But the Grammy success has not phased the band, Lovett said.

“We don’t care much for record sales, statistics or award shows that make music competitive and celebrate commerce,” he said. “It was a bizarre experience playing with the Avett Brothers and (Bob) Dylan. That was the best part of the whole evening. Everything else was a circus.

“This tour is more exciting than any of it,” he said.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.