Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Cole Bros. 1944-47 #5


SAVE0192, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

A well circulated picture of the 1946 train wreck in Redding,
Calif. with elephant car on it's side.
Ace Donovan at lower left using torch
Whitey Linderman kneeling at left, Bloomer English with the
plaid shirt and Bill Woodcock at right.

Posted by Buckles at 7/14/2010 06:38:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this when and where the Colonel went inside and released the bulls from their securing chains?

14 July, 2010 08:55
Buckles said...

I never heard those exact details but I suppose that once the opening in the roof was complete the elephants would have been more accessible. My mother and I arrived just as they were bringing out the last one.
They rented two baggage cars temporarily and I do remember my dad saying what a struggle it was to get them loaded that first night, he said it was almost daylight before the show could move.

14 July, 2010 11:18
Chic Silber said...

Were any animals or people lost

or badly injured in this wreck

14 July, 2010 14:24
Buckles said...

Surprisingly there weren't, the reason being the accident occurred while moving sections of the train around.
A yard engineer tried to move some flat cars onto trackage already occupied.
The bull car was slid into by a flat car carrying cages and they slowly fell away from each other on opposite sides of the track.
There were three elephant men riding on top of the car at the time and one (Ted Meyer) broke his leg while jumping away as it went over.
I remember him well, Ted was later a Professor at one of the Kansas Universities, the one at Manhattan.
He even once sponsored a circus there at the Field House.
One of the acts he hired was the Miller-Woodcock Performing Elephants.
Ted also printed a circus publication of some sort.
Rick Pfening might remember this,

14 July, 2010 15:32
Anonymous said...

Buckles,
Dane will be attending Kansas State University at Manhattan this fall, I will see if he can do some research on Ted Meyer. Hard to believe my tent hand is off to college, you and Barbara were his first visitors after he was born. Natalie is headed out next week to visit the Flying Pages in Michigan.
Erik Jaeger

15 July, 2010 21:05

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)