Buckles Blog: From Chic Silber #3

Thursday, October 09, 2014

Maybe Hal Guyon (or somebody else) knows which wagons these are on the Red Train.

Bob Cline said...: The ones with the windows are the newer cage wagons. Both ends have foldouts to make it a larger unit when it is parked. The animals are then run into the small transport cages to be taken into the arena. I'm not sure when they started using them.

Josip Marcan had these wagons transported by truck while his act was their instead of on the train so that he could have access to the animals at all times.

Bob; 09 October, 2014 06:20
Hal Guyon said...: Bob`s right, I think one year they carried bears. I`ve got pictures and will look them up next week. Heading to Savannah this morning for a Circus Model Builders Gathering.; 09 October, 2014 08:52
Roger Smith said...: Quite a point, BOB. I asked all the RBB trainers if scheduled train stops were sufficient for the cat men to clean out, feed, and water. All became very quiet. Charly Baumann said only, "We, uh, do the best we can." Meaning there are stretches of time the animals could not be appropriately attended. Marcan evidently figured this out, and kept his animals with him for proper care. If memory serves, Buckles posted a photo of the cat men standing on a fold-down platform they could walk along to service the cages while on the flats. Still, how often did stops allow this work to be done, and how long did the animals go without the most crucial element of care, which is water?; 10 October, 2014 14:28

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