RALEIGH, N.C. — Simply two of the 9 automobiles from the Ringling Bros. circus prepare purchased by the North Carolina Division of Transportation will survive after the state auctioned off the remaining tools, the Raleigh Information & Observer studies.
4 of the automobiles had been badly broken by a hearth in March and needed to be scrapped [see “Former Ringling Bros. railcars burn …,” Trains News Wire, March 10, 2022]. Two extra had been offered to tourist-train operators in Might for a complete of $26,301.
That left three automobiles positioned up for public sale this fall. They’ve now been purchased for a complete of $28,750 by an organization which intends to scrap them, in line with an NCDOT spokeswoman.
The state DOT purchased the automobiles — eight which had been used as dormitories for performers on the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus prepare, and one baggage automobile — when the circus shut down in 2017, planning to rebuild them for its tools fleet for state-supported Piedmont Amtrak service. St. Louis Automobile Co., which constructed the Ringling Bros. automobiles, additionally constructed a few of the present Piedmont automobiles.
However the state in the end selected to order new tools with the assistance of federal grants, rendering the circus surplus and resulting in the auctions.