Many critics praised the originality of the title character's song in the first act about the head of a railway company, which may have been a joke about the Duke of Sutherland, "who was fond of running railway engines". Scott called the song a "ludicrous ballad", but "quite in the spirit of the well-known compositions of 'Bab,' and, as it has been fitted with a lively tune and a rattling chorus, a hearty encore was inevitable. Though the ditty was long, the audience would have been well content to hear it all over again." The "Pall Mall Gazette" found the orchestration "very novel, including, as it does, the employment of a railway bell, a railway whistle, and some new instrument of music imitating the agreeable sound of a train in motion." Similarly "The Sunday Times" noted, "The entire company join in the chorus, the music of which admirably expresses the whirl and thunder of a railway train at express speed." "The Era" called it "a screaming, whistling and shouting chorus fairly brings down the house".