Extreme Trains 12/23 Circus Trains

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wheeler1963

wheeler1963

Wheeler's Trains
Tonight at 10pm EST "The Ringling Bros. and Branum & Bailey's circus train is the longest privately owned train in the world.

Look's like a good one for us circus lovers!!!! :D
 
It was pretty good I thought, I still think the host needs to mellow out a bit, but it is great to have a train related series. Mike
 


Darn it!!! Worked feverishly on the Honey-do list, got tired, sat down about 9:45 and promptly fell asleep waiting for the show.:(
 
Alright, I'll offer some observations....

Extreme Trains Circus Edition--

Lousy host, too animated. If he were my conductor, he'd be riding a trailing unit or, better yet, be asleep. I'll give anything to listen to conversations from the folks he encounters in his work. And for the the true railfan, I'm sure you have all picked up on the mistaken explanations he gives at times. On this show I heard him say it takes about 30 seconds to stop the RBBB train, ???. I myself handled the blue unit train from Chicago to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. If I stopped that train that fast, I'd start running away as fast as I could without looking back at the circus employees hunting me like Christmas bargain. Not gonna happen.

Great show on the workings of the train and how Ringling refurbishes it's equipment. I enjoyed the flashbacks to older trains and some of the stories that went along with them. I have paid homage to the big wreck of the Hagenbeck-Wallace show train that was struck head-on by a troop train. Legend tells that the elephants(4) that died in the wreck were just buried on site, kind of bulldozed into a pit and covered. There is a plaque at the site, a memorial to the wreck. In the cemetary are a lot of graves with "unknown" persons buried. Lots of roustabouts joined the circuses in different towns so they were often nameless to most. A few of the graves simply say "shorty", "whiskers", or other nicknames as a way of simple markings.

Hard work, little pay but a great adventure!

Johnny
 
I have all the shows on my DVR. just on the first week I upgraded my dish reciver as I got a new 42 inch LCD TV and had to get the HD programing for it. I have it all the episodes saved on the DVR in HD.
 
I got a kick from the circus managers familys room! beside the front door, looked to be a police batton hanging there? Correct me if I'm mistaken! Johnny I see why you would run.......WOW, Tough circus people!
 
While not a huge fan of the circus train, I watched anyway just to see what it was all about. I actually found the episode pretty interesting, as I have the prior episodes I watched. I'm not about ready to go out and model the circus train after watching it, but I thought it was pretty interesting nonetheless.

Yeah, the host is a bit much sometimes, but I kind of assumed that going in and make an effort to look beyond that, so I'm able to enjoy the content of the show itself. I thought he'd actually toned it down quite a bit from the previous 2 episodes I'd seen (UP 844 & Empire Builder). Still haven't seen the first few episodes (freight train & coal train?) but I'm hoping to catch them in reruns sometime soon.

FWIW, I thought the circus train episode seemed like they had a lot of "filler" in it. Especially at the beginning, I felt they spent way too much time on the generator repair and the wheelset replacement segments.

Another thing I thought was interesting was they were packing up the circus and going from Baltimore to DC... Which isn't really that far. Seemed like a heck of a lot of trouble for only a 40-mile or so trip.

Also, in the background of some of the yard scenes, it looked like there was a GN F-unit on one of the yard tracks? Did anyone else notice that? I saw the same loco at the beginning and end of the show, so I think they must have re-used the shot of the train pulling into/out of the yard for both scenes.
 
vato loco said:
I got a kick from the circus managers familys room! beside the front door, looked to be a police batton hanging there? Correct me if I'm mistaken! Johnny I see why you would run.......WOW, Tough circus people!
Click to expand...


Yeh, Chris I saw that too. Think protection. These trains are often parked in large metropolitan areas that are less than desireable places to be in. And circus people(not to be confused with carnival folk), are like one big family, when the chips are down they pull together.

Johnny
 
stokesda said:
.....FWIW, I thought the circus train episode seemed like they had a lot of "filler" in it. Especially at the beginning, I felt they spent way too much time on the generator repair and the wheelset replacement segments.

Another thing I thought was interesting was they were packing up the circus and going from Baltimore to DC... Which isn't really that far. Seemed like a heck of a lot of trouble for only a 40-mile or so trip........
Click to expand...

I agree on some of the filler stuff with this and other episodes. But it's not often you see railcars with wheelsets slung under the carbody. Gives me another thing to model....

As for the the short, 40 mile jump(Jump=Term used to describe moving the show to next date), Ringling does this if they move 10 or 1000 miles. Places like Chicago, LA, NY, all require shorter jumps and are handled the exact same way. It is really quite effective.

The US military sent officers to travel and observe early circus moves to see how these self contained cities on wheels did it. Then applied the techniques to military missions.

Johnny
 


I dont know I am sorta starting to like the host. He does have a since of humor, Like on the 844 episode when he was walking thru the repair car. He does get a little excited but I chalk that up to where he lives. Maine is kinda isolated.
 
I actually thought more could have been said about how the differrent parts of the train function as compared to their older counterparts. Things like how the elephants are loaded side by side and facing towards the doors of the cars. In the old days they were loaded on and backed into the ends of the car from the middle loading doors. Keeping this way prevented the elephants from swaying and derailing the car. Or how the horse and other "lead" stock had stalls that swung into place as the car was loaded. These are the things that those of us who are interested in the circus and their trains find useful.

In the next month or so I'll be posting my HO elephant, horse and stock car projects in my circus thread.

Johnny
 
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