I was watching Water for Elephants the other day and I got to wondering on a couple of questions.

1. Is there any surviving rail equipment that was built specifically for a traveling show company? I mean straight from the car foundry and sold to the show, not purchased second hand off a railroad.

2. Was there ever a circus or show company that owned it's own locomotive?

3. How did depression era shows get their trains put on a railroads schedule. Did they negotiate with the different railroads about rates and what times their trains needed to be moved. Were they treated as freight or passenger movements?

1) Not sure if this stuff was actually built for the shows, but Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisc., has--or had--flat cars for their own annual circus train until 2009, when the train was discontinued because of the age of the cars.

http://dekerivers.wordpress.com/2008/03 ... rade-fans/

As a side note, much of the equipment used in "Water for Elephants" came from the Circus World Museum.

2) This site may well have all the other answers you seek--if not on this first page, on others in this general Circus Train website:

http://www.trainweb.org/circus/train_equipment.htm

Not really. Only the circus wagons came from the Museum. They were shipped to California (Filmore & Western) and then back to Wisconsin. The wagons which appeared in the footage shot at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum were "dummies" consisting of 2x4 frames covered with tarps. These were built on site and mounted on TVRM flat cars to which the sideboards were added. The wagon wheels (only applied to the side viewed on camera) were plywood circles with wheel print art applied.

TVRM's "Water For Elephants" equipment was from the regular fleet and used to 'double' for the California train (although one wooden boxcar/horse car was shipped to Tennessee for continuity.) As far as I know, the F&W equipment had no circus background. Actually, several of their coaches were the ones built for "Wild Wild West" (on pig flats, I think.) Art Director David Crank even had a wooden false back built for TVRM's ex B&O office car #98 and brought the railing from F&W's "Wild Wild West" tail car to duplicate the California look. The false back was recycled into a 'train car stage' which is now used during TVRM's Eerie Express Fun House event for storytelling and costume contests. We built a railing out of PVC piping (painted gold) and constructed a plywood and canvas roof complete with a makeshift platform awning.

http://tvrail.com/pages/in-the-movies

https://picasaweb.google.com/112765999810639642735/FilmProductionPhotos#

Here is a link to photos of the real deal at the Circus World Museum:

http://travelphotobase.com/s/WIBCR.HTM

At one time a wagon loading demo was a daily event, using either a team of Clydesdales or that "bulldog" Mack that shows in one of the photos.

Here is a link to a blog post that gives some builder info for one of the cars:

http://circustents.blogspot.com/2011/10 ... _5194.html

The flat cars were custom built because of the show's unique requirements... lots of deck space for a relatively light load, and the ability to end load across bridge plates, a technique that was already known as "circus loading" when adopted for early TOFC operation. For coach stock / living quarters, the different traveling shows typically bought outdated passenger equipment and converted it. Several cars at IRM and other museums have reached preservation by way of the shows.

The Ringling museum in Florida allegedly has a private passenger car built for the circus owner. If it moved in his circus trains, would that answer the original question?
http://www.ringling.org/CircusMuseum2.aspx?id=3766
If you see it on the Internet, is it true?

I don't believe they survived, but in the 1880's Jackson & Sharp built a couple of cars for Professor Batholomew's Equine Paradox.

The main "private" car included the professor's stateroom a room "for the pony's" At the time Jackson & Sharp was building and maintaining Wagner Palace cars.

As best I can tell, the second car was primary for the sets.

Randy

Does anyone know where Ringling Bros got their cars for their trains? Two trains, 60 cars a train, I'm assuming they got them from multiple railroads.

Did I say "railroad equipment"? >;-)

The February 2011 issue of Trains Magazine featured the Ringling Brothers rail operation.

Alan Maples

Yes, many sources, and many generations of equipment. When old cars got shoddy, they scrapped them and bought something slightly better.

Here is a web site devoted to links to pix of passenger cars on other sites:

http://passcarphotos.info/

As you scroll down you'll see banners with the names of different shows that owned railroad equipment. Those links don't work at the moment, but if you go to the name of the show in the alphabetical listing of road names, they are there. Not a lot of history, but the source of the cars is identified where known.

Since I assume Charles and John Ringling were rich, or became so, they would have had private cars for their own personal use. That doesn't mean they traveled with the hired help.

On edit:

If you start at the Ringling Bros. listing, and keep hitting the "Next Page" button at the bottom of the pages, you will cycle through all the shows, American Freedom train, Artrain, etc. Here is a direct link to Prof. Gentry's Dog & Pony Show car:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPictur ... id=2382243

Two years ago we visited the Florida Railroad Museum and rode on an open car, a long flat car with added roof and sides. It looked familiar, then I asked the conductor if there was a circus facility nearby. "Oh yes, not far away and we have a rail connection. Sometimes we get their surplus cars". I told him this car matched a drawing in the IRM's Pullman Library, for 5 53' 3" type FMS flat cars with steel underframe made by Standard Steel Car (Butler, PA 1911) for the Buffalo Bill Shows, 1 for Jones Shows and 5 for SSC stock. Besides the drawing itself, anyone can check that from Eric Neubauer's CD, "Pullman-Standard Freight Car Production, including Predecessors" (c. 2002). Also on his list and perhaps among the drawings are more BBS cars, 4 type SM 60' single deck stock cars and 50 40' type FM flat cars. The 53' flat cars had treads for the wagons.
In the area of passenger cars, we have a number of Ringling rebuild plan drawings, also the Jomar and the Wisconsin drawings. The latter drawings of the Wisconsin proved helpful during its restoration at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. The circus train lives!
Ted Anderson

Dear Boilerwash:
Most of your questions are answered in: "The Circus Moves By Rail" by Chappie Fox.
Insofar as locomotives owned by Shows, I recall reading (R&LHS Bulletin No. 124) that c.1920, John (?) Ringling purchased 10 "Russian" Decapods (2-10-0) from the USRA. A few years later, they were resold by Ringling to railroads which had more of these on their rosters...
J.David