The Great Circus Train of 1918

THE GREAT CIRCUS TRAIN


The Hagenbeck Wallace Circus Train was waiting on the Michigan Central tracks to change
To the track that would take them to the Hammond show… 26 cars full of circus folk……

They stopped to cool an overheated axel box at a rail siding most were sleeping in their cots
When up from behind came a sleeping engineer….was coming in a troop train that he commandeered

The Great Circus Train of 1918
The worst crash the Indiana had ever seen
A circus of horrors it was know to be
The Great Circus Train of 1918…


At 60 mph he did not see… the efforts of the flagman of what was to be
He plowed into the back of the circus train…crushing three cars as it exploded in flames…….


86 dead most didn’t have names…many were roustabouts who just hopped the train
There was no record of whom… no family to tell
There was no one to mourn or to say farewell

Chorus….

The circus itself only missed one show. The Hammond was canceled but they made it to Monroe
An outpouring of friends helped the show to go on
But what about the people who were gone… hey hey

Outside of Chicago a mass grave remains…of all the bodies taken from the train
The ones that had markers were the performers that died
They were burnt so bad their bodies could not be verified