How were circus advertising cars used?

[OldEastRR]

MTL is making these and says they were used to promote an upcoming visit from the circus. Did that mean these cars travelled separately from the circus trains? Like they were hauled to the next town some time before the circus was scheduled to arrive? If so, were they handled by regular railroads as single freight or passenger cars?

[bbussey]

Advertising cars traveled to locales ahead of the circus and carried personnel that prepared for the pending arrival of the circus. They typically traveled on the rear of whatever passenger consist was traveling to the desired destination. For example, if the circus was scheduled to visit Philadelphia after a Pittsburgh visit, an advertising car would travel to Philly a week or so ahead of arrival at the end of a Pennsy consist.

Of the two cars that MTL has released to date, the mail-baggage is from 1890 and the parlor is pre-WWII. I've seen pics of the real parlor, so I can vouch for the accuracy of that model.

[altohorn25]

Advertising cars traveled to locales ahead of the circus and carried personnel that prepared for the pending arrival of the circus. They typically traveled on the rear of whatever passenger consist was traveling to the desired destination. For example, if the circus was scheduled to visit Philadelphia after a Pittsburgh visit, an advertising car would travel to Philly a week or so ahead of arrival at the end of a Pennsy consist.

Of the two cars that MTL has released to date, the mail-baggage is from 1890 and the parlor is pre-WWII. I've seen pics of the real parlor, so I can vouch for the accuracy of that model.

Bryan is correct on how the cars were moved.  The Red, White, and Blue car is fairly accurate.

Nate

[Mark5]

Yeah what Bryan and Nate said. 

The great thing about this car is you don't have to put together a circus train. As a result, I picked one up.

This car only ran from 1938 - 1946 like this, after which it supposedly was demoted to laundry service. I will pretend that it made to 1955.

Here's a pic of the actual car: http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0105/rbb1.jpg

Mark

[randgust]

Carstens "The Circus Moves by Rail" by Parkinson has an entire chapter devoted to the advertising cars with lots of pictures.

Think of them also as a rolling print shop that fully intended to carpet a town with posters on when the circus was coming.   When you look at old photos and see all those circus posters all over the place, that's the result of an advertising car.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0716/9281/products/VIN024-A.jpg?v=1437099347 

If you owned a building and got annoyed at all this, the "Post no Bills" resulted from that.

If you're interested in circus modeling at all, that book is on your required library list.

And if you just Google 'circus posters history' and look at images, it's just freakin' awesome.  Makes you want to carpet your own model town.

[altohorn25]

Here's another photo of the prototype car.  This photo is from the book everyone is talking about, "The Circus Moves By Rail."

Nate [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Mark5]

Great info - thanks for posting that Nate.

I wonder if the car is still at the museum ...

http://www.circusworldbaraboo.org

Mark