Saturday, May 09, 2009

Ringling-Barnum 1932 #2


Scan11647, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 5/09/2009 06:21:00 AM

3 comments:

4pawfan said...

Flat #130 was in the 3rd section and wagon #201 was in the concession dept. Note the jacks, lumber, and poles carried in the side racks for concession stands. Possum belly in the bottom would have carried stakes,etc.

09 May, 2009 10:24
Richard Reynolds said...

These 1932 RBBB train photos were indeed taken by Charles Kitto. They were shot in Madison, WI on August 19, 1932.

I have seen sets of them at the Parkinson, Museum (CWM) and the Milner Library at Illinois State Univ. Normal. Also the late Gordon Potter of St. Joseph Michigan had a set which he once loaned me.

The photos are very significant in terms of circus train history. Why - - because they show RBBB’s orange painted flat cars with red lettering shaded in green. 1932 was the only year that was ever done.

Gordon Potter recorded that paint scheme in his remarkable notes which he made at the time. And, these pictures, though b&w, bear it out.

For 1930 and 1931 the RBBB flats and stocks had been painted orange with either white or silver lettering. A number of photos show that scheme, and again, Potter, recalled it.

The orange paint man must have done a good job of selling because orange was put on the Peru based shows as well. Likely it was a case of John Ringling’s getting a cheaper price for buying so much of it for all his shows.

So why change the lettering for RBBB in 1932? The answer lies in the shows’ terrible financial condition at the time.

The Ringling circus was very close to collapsing - - perhaps forever. The 1931 season was a disaster at the box office, so bad that the Ringling circus closed following its date in Atlanta on Monday September 14th.

When 1932 rolled around there simply wasn’t any money to paint equipment for the coming season. So, it went without except for touch ups here and there.

As far as I know, 1945 was the only other year when the show train went without new paint. That was because of the terrible big top fire the year before in Hartford causing the circus to once again face the prospect of closing forever. But let us get back to the Great Depression year of 1932.

To make the '32 circus train as presentable as possible it was given a good scrubbing with a product called “Wyandotte Detergent.” While it cleaned up the car bodies, it removed much of the lettering.

That’s what RBBB’s General Manager Carl Hathaway told Jess Adkins in Peru in a letter dated February 26, 1932. So, the white letters of the previous year were painted over with the ones Gordon Potter recalled – namely red with green shading. Presumably, the show already had the red and green paint on hand

09 May, 2009 16:38
John Goodall said...

Could you imagine taking a load like this with chairs and other materials hanging from the sides on the rails today?

In the earlie days of the Schlitz Circus Parade and later the Great Circus Parade, Chappie Fox had lumber for tables and tent poles on the sides of the wagons heading to Milwaukee.

In the last few years of the parade nothing was allowed to be strapped to the sides of the wagons.

12 May, 2009 13:35

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