1897 - 1902 Seven Sleeping Cars were built by contractor WR Renshaw of Stoke-on-Trent England. The cars were 57 feet long. Painted dark lake with gold lettering. Of all these 67+ Barnum cars (a mishap in Gemany meant replacing an undetermined type and number of cars), just one sleeping car still exists - at the National Museum in Cardiff (Nantgarw) awaiting restoration and currently not on display. Click the link and search for Renshaw - or Barnum. Image: Sleeping car 50. Circus World Museum collection, Baraboo Wisconsin. |
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| Image: Former Barnum & Bailey sleepers at the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks & Railway (ANDR) sometime after their acquisition in 1910. ANDR is known to have acquired three of them and numbered them 1,2,3. Number 3 survives to this day. |  |
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Barnum & Bailey sleeper 57 is offloaded at Hamburg as Advertising Car #1 waits on nearby tracks. Postcard Image: Todd Gilbreath collection |
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| Image: Former Barnum & Bailey sleeper 55 in the years after its relettering for Buffalo Bill's Wild West. In use as a foreman's office at Newport Docks. |  |
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Image: Half of a former Barnum sleeper loaded on a Crocodile flat at Newport Docks. |
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The remaining car is Alexandra (Newport) Dock & Railway Company autotrailer/carriage number 3. The car still has its Amercian-style end verandas. Built for the Barnum & Bailey Circus as a sleeper, exact car number unknown, but in the range of 50-57 Image: A similar car on the surviving ANDR car #3 after refurbishment to become ANDR coach #1. Not the changes to the windows and couplers. The American-style verandas persist. ANDR numbers 2 & 3 probably looked very much like it. |
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In 1908 the surviving car #3 was sold to the Alexandra (Newport) Dock & Railway Company. In 1909 it was converted to an autotrailer, coach No.3. As an autotrailer, it would have been equipped to control a trailing steam locomotive working a push-pull train and end windows would have been added to facilitate this. To GWR in 1922 by merger, and in 1923 renumbered 64 and painted in GWR colors. Out of service in 1926. Image: A simlar car to the surviving car on the ANDR after refurbishment to become coach #1. |
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Later the car body of #3 was sold and converted into a chalet at Totnes/Paignton, Devon. As a coach the car had longitudinal bench seating and 8-wheel trucks. The unrestored car body is preserved without trucks (bogies). GWR also had a class of 2-4-0 locomotives nicknamed "Barnums' after the circus. Image: Coach #1 after refurbishment, similar to surviving ANDR #3. Note the iron work spelling out ANDR on the tail platform. Pontypridd was a city it served in commuter service. |
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The car was originally built by contractor W.R. Renshaw of Stoke-on-Trent, England, to a design created by a Barney & Smith (Toledo, Ohio, USA) subcontractor. Hence its decidedly American profile. Image: A similar car to #3 on the ANDR after refurbishment to become coach #1. Shows the interior after removal of the Barnum/Buffalo Bill beds and restrooms and the addition of bench seats. |
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Image: ANDR Coach #3 (a former Barnum & Bailey Circus Train sleeper of unknown number) in storage at the National Museum in Cardiff (Nantgarw) awaiting restoration - and currently not on display. Click the link and search for Renshaw - or Barnum.. Restored, the car would be 57 feet long, 8 feet 2.5 inches wide, and 11 feet 10 inches tall with wheels - the same height and width dimensions as the largest American narrow gauge passenger cars, though nearly 7 feet longer. |
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