From the wording of the announcement in the Micro-Trains Newsletter it sounds like they intend to do some new tooling for this series. The upcoming 8 Section and 12 Section Pullman Heavyweights obviously can be used (as most of the other cars planned for release next year).... but to do an accurate Circus Train they need to do the following at a minimum: Circus Stock Car (the 40 FT NYC USRA rebuild won't cut it except for the "collectors") Mt. Vernon Circus Flat Car Warren Circus Flat Car This could be a really nice series for M-T.... with being able to get more mileage out of the Heavyweight tooling, and their ability to do epoxy loads for the Circus wagon bodies (the wheels need to be injection molded, and probably the cage bars and some other details ought to be add-on parts). I would "need" to have a circus train to operate on my home layout once a year, and I'm sure that the NTRAK crowd will go nuts buying them and seeing who can run the longest train (the prototype were pretty big consists, probably run in sections during the steam era). Charlie Vlk
I think the clowns would have only put on their makeup before a show, they wouldn't have worn it on the train travelling from show to show, so unless you actually model the circus itself putting on a show your clowns and other performers would just look like normal people.
My father took us to the Ringling Bros. circus in the old Madison Square Garden on 49th Street when we were kids. Then years later I saw the train sitting on the old NYC tracks west of 12th Avenue at 32nd street. They were in town to perform at the new Garden above Penn Station. I WELL get a set to run on my railroad.
I would absolutely love to run a nice long RBBB train around an NTrak layout. The only thing I can think of better than a long train for getting folks to stop and look is a long train of circus stuff. Still, the lack of detail here is a concern. The way the announcement is worded it sounds like they will be using a lot of existing cars from different eras, each just made up for RBBB. While I won't be a rivet counter about it, if half the cars are steam era, and half are modern that would kill it for me. There has to be some level of plausibility to it, if only a weak one. I'm also quite concerned about cost. If I'm going to put together another 75-100 car train to represent a circus it can't be made up of $40 box cars....
