Barnum & Bailey In Europe (From Henry Schroer)

Touir%20plan%20Ringling%20Germany2, a photo by bucklesw1 on Flickr. Hi Buckles, Just got this book about Circus Trains in Germany from 1900 until 2000 and saw some interesting pictures of Barnum and Bailey in there that may interest you and the readers of your blog. It says in the book that Barnum & Bailey arrived in England in December 1897 and went to Germany in April 1900. The opened in Hamburg on April 15. 1900 until 15. May and went on until the 10th of November. From the 25th of November until the 24th of February 1901 the played in Vienna and from the 25th of February until the the 6th of April the had a Winter pause in Vienna. After that the played some more towns in Austria and went on to Hungary from there and then went back to Germany until the 30.August 1901 where the closed in a town named Leer which is close to Hamburg. We used to say : In Leer it s always Leer because the business there was never any good and Leer means empty in German. It is a very small town and for me hard to understand why the would play a town like that. After that the went on to Holland and Belgium and in 1902 the toured France and Switzerland. On the end of October 1902 they went back to the US. There is one picture of a train car been unloaded from the ship and it says in the book that they had 7 Coaches, 22 tunnel and 35 flatcars. But I don’t think the did all there research right because it also says that Hugo Smith worked with 55 Elephants in the ring in 1920. But the news paper clipping said that even do that the entrance price where very high the attendance was very good but the seating in the Tent was not vey comfortable. Then there was a article of the Munich News Paper about the advertising car that was parked in the train yards and the talked about it unusual size, specially the length because it was unusually for Germany and that it sleeps 20 man and has a big boiler in the back to cook the glue for the posters. Would have been a nice smell in the car, talking about the good old days!!!!. The car was 58 ‘ long, 7’ wide and 9’ high and had two 4 axle bogeys. In a town like Munich the hang 10.000 posters and hangers in about a weeks time. Starting at 6 am with a short breakfast in a Guesthouse and finishing at 6 Pm for the day. Talking about the good old days!!!! All the best Henry Schroer