Above is an old Australian "cage wagon" now exhibited at a railroad museum. It appears that the animals were housed "double decker" style. Is that true? The closest I have seen to this is the old dog wagons that used to be on show's here in America. Below is the new and improved animal trainers association endorsed "cage wagon" complete with patched with wire exercise pen, panels tied together with rope to keep the animals from going under and plywood sheets.
I doubt that the depicted railroad vehicle had anything to do with a circus. It's more than likely a vehicle designed to carry fowl or small mammals of one type or another from farm to slaughter house. Australian circuses never owned their own cars, they were leased from the system railroads. One or more roads did set aside specific cars for circus use, but specialized design seems not to have been a consideration, making the enterprise different than in the US.
ReplyDeleteThat's a railroad sheep hauler
ReplyDeleteAnonymous #2,
ReplyDeleteWhich one? The first or the second picture. :)
In the article the first picture was posted in, the author from Australia stated that "the museum includes a number of circus wagons, including this one which transported lions.(Note the lion cartoon above it) That's why I was asking.
Wade
In that case the author got it wrong. The rail waggon was used for sheep.
ReplyDeleteThe only custom built circus rail waggons that I am aware of were built for elephants. Each State in this country has it's own rail system - many on different gauges. That's why a show couldn't own it's own rail waggons - they would need different waggons for every State. However, some States did build elephant waggons for Wirth's Circus which travelled exclusively by rail.
Rail travel eventually contributed to their demise. It was too inflexible, many branch lines were closed down, performers weren't real keen on living in crudely converted passenger carriages and the route had to be set a long time in advance. Other circuses could get the route from the railways and jump in front of Wirths. In the end the family got too old and too tired to keep fighting and just retired gracefully!
Steve,
ReplyDeleteDo you know where there are any picture's available of the custom elephant car's built for the various show's?
Wade
I'm not aware of any.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a rail history site.
Try googling New South Wales Government Railways [NSWGR]. They burnt the last of theirs about 40 years ago.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteWere they all basically the same design for each show, or did they letter them for each show so folk's knew what show it was?
Wade
None of the rail waggons used here were ever lettered.
ReplyDeleteThe coaches were just standard passenger coaches and the flats went on to other rail uses when the circus moved to the next State. I think [but maybe wrong] that the specially built elephant waggons were even used for cattle transport when the circus left that State. They weren't the 70' or 80' bogies that you guys used over there. They would be about the same length as the sheep waggon pictured above.