The circus train pulls into town with lots of different animals.

Circus Train carries lots of colorful clowns.

Come one! Come all! Beginning in the 1870s, specially built trains transported the circus to eager crowds across the US. Now the magic of these circus trains is captured for all to enjoy in the delightful book. Rare behind-the-scenes photographs display the exciting and unusual construction and operation of circus trains. Witness animals being loaded and unloaded. Experience life inside the coaches that housed circus personnel. See flamboyant paint schemes, special length railroad cars, and rare builders' photos. Exciting rail scenes sure to excite the imagination!

The children go to the train station to watch the circus train come to town, with its lion, its giraffe, and its clown.

A learn-to-read story about a circus train.

The circus train pulls into town with lions, tigers, elephants, and many other animals.

Lavishly illustrated and a joy to read, this authoritative reference work on the North American continent's railroads covers the U.S., Canadian, Mexican, Central American, and Cuban systems. The encyclopedia's over-arching theme is the evolution of the railroad industry and the historical impact of its progress on the North American continent. This thoroughly researched work examines the various aspects of the industry's development: technology, operations, cultural impact, the evolution of public policy regarding the industry, and the structural functioning of modern railroads. More than 500 alphabetical entries cover a myriad of subjects, including numerous entries profiling the principal companies, suppliers, manufacturers, and individuals influencing the history of the rails. Extensive appendices provide data regarding weight, fuel, statistical trends, and more, as well as a list of 130 vital railroad books. Railfans will treasure this indispensable work.

What really happened on the circus train in 1918? Read the story of this tragedy for the entertainment industry of the time. In the cool, pre-dawn hours on a June night in 1918, a train engineer closed his cab window as he chugged toward Hammond, Indiana. He drifted to sleep, and his train bore down on the idle Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Train. Soon after, the sleeping engineer's locomotive plowed into the circus train. In the subsequent wreckage and blaze, more than two hundred circus performers were injured and eighty-six were killed, most of whom were interred in a mass grave in the Showmen's Rest section of Chicago's Woodlawn Cemetery. Join local historian Richard Lytle as he recounts, in the fullest retelling to date, the details of this tragedy and its role in the overall evolution and demise of a unique entertainment industry.