[Dixielandjazz] Mamie's blues

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

I imagine that, like me, many people know the Jelly Roll Morton 
recordings of "Mamie's blues". The first stanza is

Two nineteen done took my baby away (2)
Two seventeen bring her back someday

The reference is to trains and I had always thought that "two nineteen" 
and "two seventeen" referred to train route numbers (1919 and 1717). I 
still do but my belief was thrown into doubt when I attended the funeral 
of an old friend last week.

One of the pieces of music played was the February 1926 Chippie 
Hill/Louis Armstrong recording of the Richard M Jones composition 
"Trouble in mind". This has a verse referring to the "two nineteen 
train". My friend's widow was moved by this wonderful performance and 
asked me if I could transcribe the words for her. Straight-forward, I 
thought - there'll be internet sites which have the words. There are - 
but all the ones I've located have "two nineteen" written as "2:19". To 
me, this implies that the reference is to a timetable (nineteen minutes 
past two o'clock), not a train route number.

Have I been wrong all the time? If not, does anyone know what the "two 
nineteen" and "two seventeen" routes were?

Troubled in mind,
Anton