Sunday, December 02, 2007

From Richard Reynolds


1954Bdnton11, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

This photo was run earlier as part of the 1954 series taken at the Bradenton, FL depot. But where is the caboose?

Circus trains were handled as freights back in these days and always had a caboose on the end per standard operating procedures. Instead we have an Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) passenger car. Why? Perhaps ACL had no caboose in Sarasota when the train was assembled and this passenger car was a substitute.

As I mentioned earlier this train consist was unusual in that the stock cars were behind the flats, instead of right behind the locomotives per SOP. Maybe the positioning of the flats and this ACL passenger car were only going as far as Palmetto across the Manatee River which the train is crossing. There they may have switched things around for the long ride to NYC with the flats being put behind the locomotives and the ACL car taken off and an ACL caboose added in its place.

Incidentally, this set of photos are the only ones I have ever seen showing the RBBB train crossing one of the long trestles across the Manatee River. The ACL owned this one and the competing Seaboard Air Line RR (SAL) had another almost identical one a mile or so up river (to the right in this picture). With the merger of the ACL with the SAL to form the Seaboard Coast Line RR in 1967, the new railroad moved to eliminate much of the redundant truckage in the Bradenton-Sarasota area. One of the casualties was SAL's Manatee River trestle. It was removed leaving only the one formerly belonging to the ACL (the one shown here). Also SAL's truckage down the middle of downtown Sarasota's Lemon St. was taken up so that the circus train no longer went right through the heart of the City as it formerly did when using the SAL.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds adds an amusing note- - -

The Sparks Circus animal trainer Franz Woska fell off the train and into the Manatee River when it was crossing this bridge in May 1931. That winter (1930-31) Sparks had wintered with RBBB in Sarasota. When the canvas section of RBBB left for Brooklyn in the spring of ’31, they simply hooked the Sparks cars behind it. The Sparks part was headed for its opening in Chester, PA.

Somehow Woska took a tumble into the Manatee as the train was passing over this bridge (perhaps a few too many farewell toasts?). He was found in the middle of the channel clinging to a log. His injuries were said to have been painful but not serious.

That was the final tour of Sparks. That grand old title was shelved after 1931 but reappeared in 1946 with a new show put together by James Edgar. He was close to Aubrey Ringling and with her assistance got permission to use the Sparks title in 1946 (motorized) and 1947 (rail show). That was the only time RBBB ever let anyone use one of the old titles from the American Circus Corp.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone verify, are you sure this train is not backing up, look at the RR employee hanging on the back of the passenger car in a position which looks as if he is directing the backing movement of a train. This could explain the passenger car as was stated about lack of a caboose but yet the need of a the RR's own car to handle a backup move. Ralph in Baraboo

klsdad said...

Almost looks like the train
and the passenger car are on different tracks??

klsdad

Anonymous said...

I don't know about two tracks but a train crewman is hanging off the stairs on the right side and another crewman is in the platform on the left. Perhaps they were spotting the car to add it to the circus train.