[Dixielandjazz] Fw: Two Nineteen

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Anton wrote: 

>The popularity of Honegger's Pacific 231 (Whyte 4-6-2) tends to 
divert attention from the craftsmanship of the piece - an exercise in 
maintenance of momentum with decreasing speed.
>But, a 219? A locomotive with eighteen trailing wheels? The mind
      boggles.
>>All the best,

and I reply:
as far as I recall, and my paternal grandfather spent most of his working life setting the glorious machines up and getting them going before the drivers arrived to take them out (his father did the same for static engines until one of them gave him a lobotomy) British engines always referred to three numbers, as in 4-6-0.
2-1-9 would be strange, but of course this opens the prospect of 2-1-9 will eventually take my darling away, and the reference to "some day" in the "bring her back" line has the added poignancy of  an indefinite future date.  
This might be a good idea for a Marty Grosz song (he has used a line of mine). 
A lady in a train I was travelling on some years ago was much offended when I retranslated SBB to Schweitzer Bloody Bahn, or Swiss Bloody Railways, her national pride standing firm against my exasperation and dread of missing my flight out of Zuerich. What would our Swiss friend Honegger have said? 

I was amused when Herb Ellis made a joke about having numbers rather than names for numbers, at a gig where our illustrious listmate Ken Mathieson was drummer, that he cited Number 29. Which is in fact the name of a train piece recorded c. 1930 by Wesley Wallace, in 6/4.
I remember improving my then worse than rudimentary German by plodding through an Axel Zwingenberger sleevenote and reading that his interest in boogie woogie was kindled by a youthful interest in Dampflok, steam locomotives! Honky tonk training. 

Of course "Happy go Lucky Local" in English (not overall British) usage does not indicate a train. 
Rather a building which only seems to the passenger to be moving, when HE is (Scottish parlance) Steaming.
Or in a more international idiom a Flying Scotsman. 

Two minutes is not an unduly short time for a steam train to be officially stopped. The period of time cited is that between the doors being opened by the disembarking and then being closed securely before the train starts to move. 
And now I must reach for my pipe, warm pint and duffel coat and step aboard the Courtney Pyne cliche of the pre-Coltrane British jazzfan,
Spraintotters the lot of us 
whoo whoo, 
Robert