Friday, January 28, 2011

Information needed!


SAVE0255, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

I received the message below from Frederick Neill who has done extensive study on the Barnum & Bailey tour of Europe 1898-02.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Buckles


Buckles,

Thankfully (!) I'm getting near the end of my Barnum & Bailey visit researches to UK. However, I've hit a slight puzzle - almost certainly due to the fact we have had no shows as large as B&B plus few ever using near "standard" US methods. Hence I've nothing to check against at UK end.

What happened was in 1899 the show visited Torquay and because the rail sidings were limited the wagons had a 5 mile trip to the lot. No real problem, except the 'Torquay Times' noted that a menagerie pole snapped and the pole wagon had to do a 10 mile round trip to collect the spare - this did cause some delays. My logic queries why the spare was not being carried but seems to have been left on the rail flat. Or did US shows do this anyway? The only reason I can think of for not carrying the spare would be pole's weight - is that why? I would imagine that there would have been a fairly standard way of doing things in many of the large shows - so, after the flats had "unloaded" would there still have been a lot of items (at least spare poles) on board?

Keep up the blog, many thanks in advance

Fred Neill (neill.frederick@gmail.com)

4 comments:

Harry Kingston said...

All the spares center poles were carried in a stock car lashed to the inside top ceiling if I an correct.
Harry in Texas

Hal Guyon said...

Harry, I don`t know about them being on the inside. I would think that would be hard to do considering the length of the pole and getting it through the door. Some of those Big Top center poles were about 60' long, with the stocks being only 72'max I believe the pole would hit the end before it could get through. Unless it was possibly put through a vent door on the end of the car. Also, the stock cars back in the Barnum & Bailey Show days were only about 60' long, they may have even been shorter on the European Railroads. But you may be right, I`m just guessing here. I do remember my Dad telling me that he had seen them tied to the outside roofs of the stock cars.

Anonymous said...

Bob Cline had a photo on his blog on Dec 31,2010 of the Al G Barnes circus flats and stocks and you could see extra qrt. poles tied to the walkway on one of the stock cars. You can also see the bump out of the roof elephant car. He also had the other day some Barton and Bailey train photos and you can spot extra side poles in the center of the flat.
Most of the stocks did have doors on the ends for the night watchman to check the stock during the night. So you could load long lumber into these cars. Alot of shows would carry a supply car of sorts to carry last years big top canvas in case they would need it. They would also load all sorts of extra material they would need on the road during the year that they could not buy from a local supplier. p.j.

Anonymous said...

After looking at this photo, it reminded me of a great article written by Fred Dahlinger. It was in the March-April 1984 Bandwagon, and was about the history of the development of the railroad circus. I was wondering if this flat was also a Brill built flat? Hard to tell from the angel of the photo if it is one of the orginal 50' flats. The wagon looks to be about 16' long if it has the standard 4' rear wheel. thanks again for all the great photos. p.j.