Winterquarters/Car Shops for circus and showtrains


My favorites are the parade wagons, and there are plenty of those coming soon. Walthers lead the parade wagons with the Charging Tiger Wagon, #933-1381. You may have noticed the package now says American Circus Series. I assume it had something to do with the fact that Walthers was producing other train series', The Cole Bros. The Royal American Shows, The Strates Shows and the McCoy Wild West Show. More to come on these later. They also had an undecorated set so you could go your own way.
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Its exciting to see some new discussion going on here! This thread is a great trove of information as I look back.

Johnny, Ive enjoyed following your work for the past number of years including your current build, your work is amazing. I have a number of hospital cars to complete and the documentation of your build on Facebook has been inspiring.

Joe, thanks for all the info and photos on the Walthers equipment. Ive been going through my roster to see what I am missing, it has been a big help.

I have a number of RBBB Simmons kits, anyone happen to have a list of all the circus kits they produced? I can start a list with what I have knowledge of, thought Id ask if someone may already have one first.

On a final note, today I ran down to the local hobby shop to look around, its been too long. I found a complete set of undecorated Walthers Circus cars that I picked up with a few other odds and ends. Im hoping to stat building again.

Enjoy the weekend and happy modeling!
-Eric
 
The next release Walthers made was #933-1382, The Generator Baggage Wagon. My spreadsheet shows it in the Baraboo collection, maybe I'm wrong, as it was released as American Circus Series. Maybe Johnny can shine some light.
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I have a number of RBBB Simmons kits, anyone happen to have a list of all the circus kits they produced? I can start a list with what I have knowledge of, thought Id ask if someone may already have one first.
-Eric
I'm still working on a list of Simmons and Circus Train Miniatures, but haven't been able to get a complete list
I have CTM-98, so I know the list should go that high, I thought I read somewhere they made 130 different wagon kits.
 
I like all of the different and exotic vehicles the circus would operate. This one is one of my faves, and the very hardest one for me to acquire, probably because I'm too cheap! Another way the circus would advertise it's quickly approaching show was the next release by Walthers, #933-1383, the Rocket Car. Sure to catch the eye of any onlooker.
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I love the parade wagons, the next one Walthers offered was a beauty. #933-1384, the Lions Bride Wagon. The wagon called the Lion and Snake, or Lion’s Bride, was built by Bode in the winter of 1904-05 for the Carl Hagenbeck Trained Animal Show and served on that circus for the 1905 and 1906 seasons.
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Here's a link to an info page on this wagon where you can see one of Johnny's photos of the real deal.
https://www.circuswagons.org/band-chariots-and-bandwagons/lion-and-snake-bandwagon/
 
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Walthers followed with a means to get the stakes in the ground so the Big Top would be steady, #933-1385, the Stake Driver. Red resin casting with a metal "driver" you would attach. Johnny has a couple of real nice examples maybe he'll post.
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Walthers released another tableau wagon, they billed it as #933-1386, the Mother Goose Wagon. However, you may have noticed that Johnny posted a couple of pix of his much larger model that appears to have the same sides as this one and with a different name.

"The Arthur Bros. loading list from 1945, that is found in the March / April 1959 issue on page 10, calls this wagon # 75 – Red Riding Hood Tableau. Bill Elbrin’s coverage of the Arthur bros. Circus in the Bandwagon, Nov. / De. 1962 on page 6 referred to this wagon as a baggage wagon # 75 – Marquee and props – Ex HW. ( Hagenbeck-Wallace ) Generally referred to as a Picture Frame tableau, as you see, some people have referred to it as the Red Riding Hood Tableau. Some call it the Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater Tableau. ( Like Johnny said ) C. P. “Chappie” Fox called this the Hagenbeck-Wallace Fairytales Tableau in his book “Horse Drawn Wagon Collection” as seen on page 53."

This link http://www.circuswagons.org/tableaus/fairy-tales-tableau-75/ shows why I have two different colors of wagon in this post, different paints in different years.

The same website says the Mother Goose, #71 burned in 1946, so it looks like Walthers released a model of Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and called it Mother Goose.
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Another awesome parade wagon was in the wings, Walthers #933-1387, the Cole Brothers Unafon. This model is after the 1937 version, which looks WAY different than the 1915 version. Another red resin casting and a specific decal set. I added the Preiser horses from a HW Baggage Wagon.

http://www.circuswagons.org/calliopes-and-musical-instruments/cole-bros-air-calliope-no-82/ shows the evolution and the beautiful restored version at Circus World.

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It really doesn't matter how I rotate these iPhone pix, once it makes it's mind up I can't make it right.
 
As you may remember, I built this 8 by 8 around the tiniest room ever to kinda have a place for my show trains to pass by after they ( in my imagination ) left Johnny's Winterquarters all bright and shiny for the new season. So I imagine this as a smallish town on the Milwaukee Road, 1973, ( '73 because that is the year the GCT had the most flatcars, so I could run the bulk of my many wagons ) somewhere between Baraboo and Milwaukee.

Here's one of the first test placements of buildings before there was track or a highway.
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This shows the edge of the next module added and the road and a culvert. I don't think there is a triple track any where between Baraboo and Milwaukee, but that's what I needed, 8 feet, three tracks to park the GCT in three cuts.

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Here's a screen cap at the end of a run by video showing module two connected to module three, showing the "town".

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A view from the crossing, it has crossing signals now, towards "town".

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A shot of a building second story where the "interior" is royalty free pix printed from the internet.

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And the "town" just after dusk after the GCT has passed by and a CNW mixed freight heads back to the yard.

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Unafon looks great I like how you painted the wheels, good colors.

The town looks awesome, I like how you lit the buildings. Do you run your train or is it a static display?
 
The "layout" ( it's the smallest one I ever built ) ( I wish I could build the big L or long straight line like Johnny ) is an 8' by 8' oval and operates. It's built to NMRA HO modular standards so if I ever choose to go to a meet with the 4 modules, ( the other two are just connectors ) I can. I run it DC for now, but plan on Digitrax or NCE when the time comes. It has a power bus under the front 1/2 for the tracks and an accessory bus under the back 1/2 for the building lights. After I finish a couple of interiors on the second floors, working streetlights are next. Then I got some ground throws for after that.

It actually works with two old Tyco power packs from the 1970's.

If I take it to a modular meet, the front track to the audience will have the power feeds disconnected and will feature the 1973 version of the GCT parked on the siding while the other trains operate on the two mainlines as per NMRA.
 
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The next offering from Walthers was an equipment wagon, this was a brown resin casting,and had a decal set that included Cole Bros, RBBB, Royal American, Strates, World of Mirth,and Cetlin & Wilson.
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Tonight's entry will lead us into some new territory. While many of the wagons produced up util now could be used on a number of different trains, and indeed Walthers had produced the GCT, The Strates Shows Train, The Cole Bros, and The Royal American Shows trains which could use many of these entries.

But tonight we have #933-1392, the Tim McCoy Plank Wagon. White resin casting, decal set for the McCoy Wild West Show along with RBBB, Cole Bros, and RAS.

This train is awesome looking with it's blue stock cars, blue passenger cars, and blue flat cars loaded with white wagons!
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