In this period, and indeed up to the effective demise of the circus as entertainment, shows travelled by train, and large circuses, which certainly included the Barnum & Bailey extravaganza, had their own dedicated carriages which were customised to their requirements, for example to act as enclosures for the animals, as living and sleeping cars for the human performers, and as administration offices for management. Indeed, it was the railway that made possible the large scale success of the circus as an entertainment business. As Douglas Wissing notes,

“The enormous growth of railroads in the post-Civil War ear fueled the golden age of circuses. Instead of plodding through the mud at ten miles a day from small town to small town, circuses hitched their railcars to trains and clattered to cities hundreds of miles apart overnight.”

At its peak, after combining forces with the Ringling Brothers' show, the Barnum & Bailey train was more than a mile in length – much of it comprising flatcars carrying wheeled wagons which could be driven to the site selected for the big top. A surviving car can be seen today at the Circus World Museum at Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Because so many circuses were travelling by train for such long periods, circus train wrecks did occur from time to time, with often very serious consequences. The Ringling Brothers train was partially wrecked in 1892 when a washed-out bridge caused the forward coaches to plunge into a river, killing one hand and 26 horses. The most disastrous such accident was the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus wreck, which took place at Hammond, Indiana, in June 1918. This disaster was caused by an engine driver falling asleep at the controls, and it killed 86 people.

The somewhat fictionalised account given by Malcolm Webber's book Medicine Show, which describes his life around 1905 as a strongman in a very much smaller travelling show, describes its train as comprising only two carriages, and hinges on a fire that destroys the train and burns to death its proprietor.

Sources

Jenny Apps, Ringlingville USA: The Stupendous Story of Seven Siblings and Their Stunning Circus Success (2013)

Richard M. Lytle, The Great Circus Train Wreck of 1918 (2010)

Bruce Nelson, America's Greatest Circus Train (2013)

Malcolm Webber, Medicine Show (1941)

Douglas A Wissing, In Writing: Uncovering the Unexpected Hoosier State (2016)