Picture this: a herd of elephants flies past you at sixty miles per hour, followed by a streak of tigers, a pride of lions, and a bunch of clowns. What do you see? It must be a circus train! One of the first uses of the circus train is credited to W.C. Coup. He partnered with P.T. Barnum in 1871 to expand the reach of their newly combined shows using locomotives. That's another word for train. You see, before trains, moving the circus was hard. They had to lug around all their animals, performers, and equipment with a team of more than 600 horses. Since there were no highways, these voyages were rough and took a long time.

Circuses would stop at many small towns between the large venues. Performing at many of these small towns was not very profitable. Because of these limitations, circuses could not grow as large as the imaginations of the operators. After they began using circus trains, Barnum and Coup only brought their show to large cities. These performances were much more profitable and the profits went toward creating an even bigger and better circus. More stages or "rings" were added and the show went on. Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus relied on the train to transport their astounding show until they went defunct in 2017.