Getting the wagons to MIlwaukee--Richard Reynolds

The Circus World Museum's (CWM's) wagons did not ride the circus train from Baraboo to Milw this year. Because the train cars are so old (some going back to the late 1920s), it would be too difficult and expensive (perhaps impossible) to bring them up to applicable safety standards. So, this year the wagons were brought down from Baraboo on low boy and flat bed trucks operated by Deppe Transit of Baraboo. That's the way they went to Milwaukee for the first two parades in 1963 and 1964. The circus train was first used on July 1, 1965. Below is a photo of its historic debut, taken at Waukesha en route from Baraboo to Milwaukee. The locomotive is no 4960, a 2-6-2 Mikado type, so named because the first of them were built for Japanese railways in 1893. No. 4960 was from the former Chicago, Burlington and Quincy RR (Burlington route). It wound up on the Grand Canyon RR (a tourist line) where it operated in the 1990s and up until 2008. It is now on static display in Williams, Arizona

The orange stock car right behind the locomotive hauled CWM's draft horses which were used to load and unload the wagons. By the last years of the Great Circus Train, the cost of insurance for carrying animals was so high that the horses had to "get off the train, " as it were, and be trucked to Milwaukee. As information, in the old days of railroad circuses all the animals led by the leash (e.g. horses, zebras, camels, llamas, and elephants) rode in stock cars. Such cars were spotted behind the locomotive because the ride was smoother there. In case you do not know, here is how the draft horses were used to load the circus wagons onto the flat cars.



This, of course, is the famous Ringling Bell Wagon about to ascend the runs (ramps) onto the car. The "poler" is the guy in the middle holding the wagon tongue. He guides the wheels so they go up correctly. When the wagon starts up the runs he gets onto one of the runs and then onto the bed of the fat car, all the while guiding the tongue, keeping the wheels on the right track. The team of Percherons provides the power. The photo was taken in 1985 by our son Tim Reynolds. He was on top of the stock car. Circus history is replete with accounts of polers being killed or seriously injured when the front wagon wheels hit something unexpectedly or fell off the runs, causing the tongue to swerve violently to the side striking the poler. This was more likely to occur when the show was loading up in the night to go to the next town. Often such early 20th century accidents were described like this - - - "George Jones of the Ringling circus was killed Monday night in a loading accident at the train. His remains were sent to his home in Kalamazoo." And that would be that - -end of story. No investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), nay no OSHA back then - not even grief counselors.