The "Where was you when," "train would wreck," and "Hello Central" bits were all around as floating lyrics.

Another blues with a third-line refrain with "Lord" in it is "Knife-Song," collected by Howard Odum before 1909. Three-line stanzas with third-line refrains were very common in black songs (from "Railroad Bill" to "The Carrier Line" to...), so not surprising at all that Bill Hunt would use one.

Andrew Everett (born about 1892) had "Hello Central give me 209" and "hate" in the same song. Charlie McCoy had the fireman and the engineer in his "That Lonesome Train Took My Baby Away." "Mamie's Blues" by Jelly Roll Morton had "The 2:19 took my baby away"; he learned it from Mamie Desdumes, who died in 1911.