Tuesday, May 18, 2010

1941 RBBB (Set 1) #6


1941 Ringling-6, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Here we have photo-documentation that, in 1941, this stake driver was still rolling on iron-rimmed wheels.

Posted by Buckles at 5/18/2010 05:50:00 AM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Iron, or steel?

18 May, 2010 10:30
Anonymous said...

Some of the last wagons that went to the lot to have rubber tires installed. The train light plant and the garage wagons would keep their spoke wheels till way past the war as they didn't go on public streets. Nice photo of the double brake setup of this wagon. Notice they have put a used set of sunburst wheels as replacements on this wagon.

18 May, 2010 10:38
Richard Reynolds said...

Yes indeed, the show still used some steel tired wagon wheels on the lot as late as 1944. The two giraffe wagons still had them in 1944.

As a wee pup, the only pneumatic wheels I can recall were those on the Gargantua wagon.[There were others, of course, but I took no notice of them.] I would often draw circus cage wagons - -say when I was 5 and 6. I still have the some of my “sketches,” and I made a point of showing the gorilla cage with solid back round wheels while the other were of spokes.

The first time I recall widespread use of pneumatic rubber wheels was in 1942 when we were on the lot during the set up. I recall my Dad making a point of how many pneumatic wheels the show was then using. Even so, there were still some steel tired ones.

1942 was also the first year I recall seeing Florida license plates on the backs of wagons.

18 May, 2010 15:41
Anonymous said...

Richard,
The license plates as you probably recall were made especially for the show, all starting with RB.
Bob Kitto

19 May, 2010 09:12

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