PASSENGER CAR PHOTO INDEX - RINGLING BROS. and BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS
UPDATED 25 FEBRUARY 2009 WITH 48 NEW LINKS ADDED.
Since the first move of a small circus down in Georgia operated by Charles Bacon and Edward Derious by rails back in 1832 until today circus' and railroads have had a very unique partnership that would serve them well all through the decades. And one part of that relationship is the passenger cars that were used to haul and house the many who make up a circus. While there have been many others, none have reached the magnitude of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, the largest railroad related operation in history.
The purpose of these listings is to help railfans, circus train fans and modelers to learn about the passenger cars of the circus train. I have made no attempt to document other types of cars since they are beyond the scope of this website, but I do recommend that if you are interested in finding photos and information about the other cars that you will take the time to explore the many different sites that are available, Flickr and Webshots being just two. Only a small part is listed here.
One site that I must mention is the one developed by the late Harold A. Driscoll. Probably the best known RBBX site on the web, he worked extensively to photograph all sorts of equipment of the circus train and did try to document where many of the cars came from. While a lot of the roster information he presented on his site is incomplete the photos serve to help document the circus train between 1998 and 2000, just before RBBX started to extensively rebuild the cars to better suit personel. Because of the size of his site I have made no efforts to catalogue all that he has but all you have to do to visit it is just click the circus train car drawing below...
RBX 76 started life as Chesapeake & Ohio 2618 City of Alderson, a Pullman 10 Rmt - DBR sleeper. After its service to the C&O it was sold to AutoTrain, with the car being acquired by the circus after that operation's demise. It served on Ringling Bros. Monte Carlo Circus train before coming to the Blue train, where it became Workman's housing.
To visit the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey website, just CLICK HERE.
To learn more about the history of circus trains in America I recommend visiting the "Circus in America" website, which contains loads of facts about the development of circus' in general as well as information on circus trains. Just CLICK HERE.
The roster information presented on these two pages is as accurate as is possible, with all listings compared to and checked against circus records. While some numberings may have been missed (the Red Train frequently changed numbers on cars from tour to tour while the Blue train kept the same numbers for the cars) most have been documented here. I cannot promise you that all links will remain working since I have no control over this. I will say, though, that if a link isn't working I will see about it (and if possible, report it to the owner of the site) and if necessary, remove it from future updates. To email me about a "broken" link just CLICK HERE.
Have photos of the circus train that you would like to share? Please consider posting them and letting me know of the url so that they can be added in. Especially needed are pre-1980 photos of the cars that were used, some being former U.S. Army World War II hospital ward cars while others were hand-me-downs acquired from various railroads over the years. It would be appreciated if you could help to document these earlier cars.
Special thanks go out to Rhett Coates, who has been very diligent in obtaining and cataloguing information about circus train's cars' histories. I also want to thank the many photographers who have been kind enough to share their shots with us, and the many website hosts who provide a place for these shots to be stored for viewing.
RBX/RBBX - Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
RBX listings at RR Picture Archives - These listings include freight cars employed by the Circus, in addition to passenger cars listed below.
