LA wagon notes 2

FOOTBOARDS ON CIRCUS WAGONS




Most of the older shows except RBBB had a single footboard in the cent of the wagon. In this case the brake was usually operated by a hand wheel at the left side of the seat. Nearly all RBBB wagons had center mounted foot brakes with what amounted to two separate but shorted footboards one on each side of the brake rod, resulting in a greater total length.



As with most things “Circus” there is no absolute answer to any Question…. Hardly! I would say tha the dimension of the fooboard from front to back would be about 1’ 4” [;is abpit a 6” up turn on the front end. The width varied considerably and was dependent to sone extent to the spacing of the body stakes on the front end of the wagon. A widgh of 2’ 6” tp 3’ would be about right. The foot rest would be 18” below the seat or wagon roof if there is no seat . The ladder rungs or foot steps should be spaced about 15 “ apart and there should be equally space between the footboard and the wagon bottom . On a wagon 6’ high this would place the bottom one 11” above the wagon bottom and the top one 11” bellow the footboard.





THE LENGTH OF WAGON POLES ( OR TONGUES)



The generally were 12 or 13 ft long although occasionally the might be found to be 14 feet. This length includes about 1 ½ feet of length that fits into the ple seat at the front end of the fifth wheel on the wagon. Thus they will project beyond the whiffle trees only about 10 ½ or 11 ½ feet.



FOLDING TONGUES (RBBB DUAL WHEEL WAGONS)



These tongue instead of fitting into a slot on the front of the fifth wheel as did the old style tongues, attached to the fifth wheel. The were attached to a pinion so that they could fold up lat against the front of the wagon when loaded on the flat cars. In fact they were rarely if ever detached from the wagon. The tongue flaired out to a wide “Y” shape about one foot six inches from where it attached toteh wagon and about two feet wide at the point. RBBB used a similar type on their newest wagons back in the 1950’s