THE FINAL SUMMIT.

Steve Lee, who managed the Union Pacific steam program until 2010, has departed this life.

A Kentucky native, Lee began his railroading career with the Illinois Central in 1972 and later served as a trainmaster and road foreman for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. As the Rock Island faced bankruptcy, Lee became the division road foreman for UP out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1980. He took charge of UP’s Heritage Fleet in 1989, overseeing 4-8-4 “FEF-3” 844 and 4-6-6-4 “Challenger” 3985 along with the railroad’s vintage diesels and passenger cars. He led the program until his retirement in 2010.

Union Pacific's decision to bring a Big Boy out of retirement and donate 3985 for preservation came later.  Union Pacific's steam program's success during the Steve Lee years undoubtedly contributed to headquarters opting to restore a Big Boy to service.

Lee was born Aug. 2, 1950, in the small north-central Kentucky town of Vine Grove, not far from Fort Knox. His hometown is located on the former Illinois Central line from Louisville to Paducah, now part of the Paducah & Louisville regional railroad. Lee hired on with the IC in 1972 and later went on to become a trainmaster and road foreman for the Rock Island. Around the time of the Rock’s demise in 1980 he landed a job with Union Pacific as a division road foreman at Cheyenne.

The spotlight began to shine on Lee in 1989 when UP put him in charge of its Heritage Fleet, based at the Cheyenne shops complex. The fleet included Nos. 844 and 3985, both of which were already operational, as well as the railroad’s extensive roster of other vintage steam and diesel locomotives and passenger cars.

Overseeing a Cheyenne crew that included full-time employees and volunteers, Lee took UP’s steam program and its locomotives far and wide, staging a number of high-profile events that included running 844 and 3985 to Railfair events at the California State Railroad Museum in 1991 and 1999, bringing 844 (still numbered 8444) to the 50th-anniversary celebration of Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal in May 1989, and taking 3985 to Chicago in 1993 for the National Railway Historical Society’s convention.

In the early days of double-stack intermodal trains, Union Pacific put 3985 on the head pin of an American President Lines train, without any diesel assistance.  The year of Mr Lee's retirement, Union Pacific put 3985 on the head pin of Ringling Barnum's Blue Unit.

Children of all ages still flock to trackside when 844 or 4014 are at work.  R.I.P.

TAKIN' IT TO THE STREETS.

Summertime is for street parades, and we'll take in a few.

Let's start in Czajków, Poland, where the District Brass Band Festival features, as one might expect, local marching bands, as well as the high-stepping majorettes characteristic of recent Polish street parades.

Our next stop is Neuss-Rosellerheide-Neuenbaum, Germany, with Die große Sonntags-Parade in the June 2026 Schützenfest.

Try not to think about marching on Poland.

We'll wrap in in Peru, Indiana, where the Circus City Festival Parade took place Saturday last.  The parade, in the fashion of small city summertime parades throughout These United States, includes fire apparatus, civic and political organizations, businesses, and the local schools' marching bands.  Taken together, the parade takes ninety minutes to pass.  Saturday was a hot day.  I found a shady spot with a decent view of the street, and recorded the circus-relevant units, particularly those involving horses, cages, or calliopes.  During the Circus City Festival, local young people demonstrate their skill in the circus arts, such as acrobatics, juggling, the trapeze, and the high wire.  Those performers marched, rode, or, as you will see, performed.

Half past July, and the blue norther teased its return last night. Sunsets are coming perceptibly earlier as well.

MARKING OFF.

Thanks for looking in.

Showtime resumes sometime next week, should all go well.

SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD.

Water for Elephants is a book that was adapted for a movie, and now there is a stage play.

I must confess that adapting a book where a lot of the action is on a train to a stage play is more of a challenge than adapting a stage play, Pressure, is to a movie.  The movie version of Water for Elephants made use of a steam train at a railroad museum as well as circus wagons from the Baraboo collection.

The stage version of Water for Elephants is performing in Chicago, and the cast recently visited Baraboo.  I can't embed the clip, which runs about a minute.  The museum has repainted most of the "Benzini" wagons, including the grease joint, back to more accurate colors reflecting their real owners.  The clip did not reveal whether the cast got a look at the one wagon still lettered for "Benzini."

ALL HANDS TO THE PUMPS!

The Popular Perspective on work songs has long been that they establish unity of effort.

As newcomers dove into a vast backcatalog of songs, many quickly highlighted just how catchy these tunes really are. But while early sea shanty composers didn’t envision ever reaching the top of the charts, they certainly wrote them to be earworms. The sea shanty is only one variant of a work song—rhythmic melodies designed to help laborers keep pace with one another during repetitive, often backbreaking jobs. Other types of work songs developed over generations among Appalachian coal miners, prison chain gangs, and British textile workers, just to name a few examples.

Yes, tightening the side-wall on the Big Top:  "Break it, pull it, shake it, now downstake it!  Move on to the next one."

LET'S START THINKING ABOUT SUMMER.

Over the years, we've noted the evolution of May Day from a north European fertility ritual to a political event.

On the itinerant circus, that used to be the traditional beginning of the travel season, and a "First of May" was a novice trouper who had a lot to learn.  There are still itinerant circuses, and some of them have been on the road for some time this season.

In political economy, the first of May is the celebration of socialist labor.  Tsar Vladimir has ditched the Soviet era parade, in favor of a wallow next week in the Great Patriotic War, although European socialists still use the day, which commemorates a strike put down roughly in Chicago, to call attention to the unfinished business of the class struggle.

Well, why not?  Christmas in northern Europe might have adopted existing rituals of the winter solstice.

That noted, the traditional Maypole of those fertility rituals, which has also been toned down in order that kindergarteners can wrap streamers around the upright for the tether ball, became the Maibaum at gathering places of German ethnic and cultural societies.

We're experiencing a spring that has been on the chilly and rainy side of late, and the year is off to a stressful start.  But the beer gardens are opening, the evenings are getting longer, and the itinerant circuses are on the road.

MARCH IS FOR MODEL RAILROAD SHOWS.

The Karlson Brothers Circus regularly show at Delavan's Train Show.  "The train show and swap meet season tends to run from November into March.  The Karlson Brothers Circus showed at last weekend's Delavan (one of two Wisconsin towns claiming to be midwestern home of the itinerant circus) for the first time in five years.  That ballyhooed March 2020 show never happened, because the politicians panicked."

The past two or three years the show has participated with several other State Line O Scale modellers and at the request of the Mayor, our display is in City Council chambers.

As is our practice, it's up to children of all ages to notice some of the sight gags.

In the past two or three years, the collection of college mascots in the menagerie has expanded.

The Circus World Museum in Baraboo has a short orange wagon with monkey bars in the ceiling, and if you look closely, there is a monkey hanging from the monkey bars.  Yes, some people did contort themselves to get a closer look into the wagon and see that yes, indeed, there's a set of monkey bars up there.

The circus train continues to draw interest from model railroaders.  The locomotive is a Saginaw bronze casting from before the War, fitted with brass wheels and a modern transmission, and the onboard power and sound are now working.

Next up, the big Chicago area O Scale show in another week.

LET SWAP MEET SEASON BEGIN.

In Milwaukee, Oktoberfest season begins at the end of July with German Fest, and model railroad swap meet season begins toward the beginning of November with Train Fest.  This year's event took place in the downtown Baird Center, and the vendors were showing their wares and the local modellers' clubs with portable layouts were featuring their sight gags.

That might be one of the more over-the-top Lionel offerings, and I hope that any young lady with an interest in trains will prefer her FT in the Santa Fe Warbonnet.

A HUMILIATION RITUAL.

That sounds about right.

The season premiere of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test was just one big humiliation ritual.

And something tells me this is going to be the toughest season yet, and by “toughest,” I’m talking about the most difficult season to watch.

Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off the installment, as we watched privileged princesses like the Giudices get shoved face-first into the mud, and Jussie Smollett already got one of the roughest edits yet for someone intent on using this for his second chance.

It sounds like TV Fanatic's Jasmin Blue shares my guilty pleasure.  She also, as one might expect of somebody who writes columns dealing with television, is much more familiar with the foibles of this year's recruits.  "It’s one of the most questionable casts, and that’s coupled with it already coming across as one of the most degrading seasons yet."

Former Green Bay Packer Randall Cobb, who joined the Aaron Rodgers receiver reunion with the Jets, is also in camp, so far not coming to the attention of the training staff.

And, contrary to last week's post, the show airs on Thursdays, freeing up Wednesdays to deal with Chicago's budgetary woes getting in the way of all the fishing off the company pier at the firehouse and the detectives' bullpen.

HERDING BIG CATS IS HAZARDOUS.

Tiger trainer Ryan Easley explained at his Show Me Tigers performances in Baraboo that the art of training big cats was in observing what they liked to do and coming up with prompts to put an act together.

No more.  "Ryan Easley, the operator of the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve near Hugo, Oklahoma, was mauled to death on Saturday in what the site portrayed as an 'accident' with a tiger under his care."

Circus cats, like house cats, have similar mannerisms, which is why prompting a tiger with a cracking whip has the same effect as prompting your mouser with a string of yarn.  But when a big cat is playful, the effects can be fatal.

Wildlife biologist and TV host Forrest Galante told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that the tiger “didn’t want to kill” Easley, calling the mauling a “mistake.”

Galante compared the fatal accident to instances when people play with their house cats and unintentionally provoke them, causing minor scratches.

However, the key difference, Galante noted, is that when a tiger lashes out, “it can be absolutely fatal,” much like the “poorly placed bite” that killed Easley.

Galante emphasized that the tiger “didn’t want to kill” Easley, and that the mauling underscores the “unpredictability that large cats exhibit.”

Galante, who also works with large animals, says “it’s never the animal’s fault” and that he and others who put themselves in proximity to dangerous animals assume the “huge risks involved.”

Easley’s father echoed Galante’s sentiment to reporters, calling the attack a “love bite.”

Professionals who work with exotic animals all understand that no such animal will put up with deliberate abuse.  Even routine and respectful interactions can turn deadly.  R.I.P.

ON MY WORKBENCH.

There have been a few itinerant circuses touring the State Line this summer.  The Karlson Brothers Circus also went on tour, showing at the Circus Model Builders national gathering in Auburn, New York.

Years ago, when the model builders showed in Auburn, it was in an honest-to-Hoxie Tucker big top, complete with ten large scale circus wagons alongside the models in more easily transported scales.  The summer show was in the Finger Lakes Mall, which in the manner of malls nationwide, has a lot of vacant space available for banquets or exhibitions.

There was light foot traffic through the show hall the three days of the show, and there was ample time to do model building.

CIRCUS DAYS.

At the beginning of summer, the Carden International Circus worked with the Zor Shrine Temple to put on a performance in Janesville, Wisconsin.

The Culpepper and Merriweather Circus have also been touring the State Line, and on August 10 had a muddy lot in Richland Center and a large turnout of children of all ages to entertain.

The training thunderstorms that caused a great deal of havoc in Milwaukee and drenched the interstate highways in the Rockford area mostly went to the southeast, thus the people of Richland County weren't worrying about flooded basements.

HE HAS A POINT.

Cold Spring Shops has long maintained that "Circus professionals and circus enthusiasts of all ages know better than to speak of the presidency as a circus.  To do so is to insult the circus."

Now comes Tim Cunningham, practitioner of the arts of clowning making precisely that point.  "Real clowns bring joy to the world, not chaos to Washington."

A PROPER CIRCUS HAS ELEPHANTS AND A TRAIN.

So we maintain, and so we model.

In Wisconsin, the pachyderms still perform, and Carden International Circus performed for the Zor Shrine Circus in Janesville.

Before the show begins, the cast help out with face-painting, and children of all ages go for elephant rides.  The weather was favorable for an outdoor show, here using the grandstand of the Rock County 4-H Fairgrounds, in a residential neighborhood of Janesville.

Children of all ages also had an opportunity to ride a miniature circus train.  One makes do with what one has.

GOOD NEWS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

Cold Spring Shops, late summer of 2023:  "As long as there are acrobats, aerialists, equestrians, jugglers, and unicyclists there will be circus."

The Northern Star, as Thanksgiving gave way to Advent.

NIU’s Circus Club began as an unofficial club in the spring 2023 semester. Within a year, the club went from being unofficial to being approved through the Student Government Association in the spring 2024 semester.

Circus Club focuses on teaching members different skills relating to the circus, such as juggling, acrobatics and unicycling.

Circus Club is currently in the process of switching from their current adviser, Benjamin Stone, an instructor in the School of Art and Design, to Michel Rodriguez-Cintra, visiting assistant professor in the School of Theatre and Dance.

Nam Pham, a junior illustration major and Circus Club founder, explained the reason for wanting to start the club.

“Two years ago, I decided to have a space where I could get some of my friends together and teach them juggling. And I decided, you know, it would be kind of cool to have that unofficially. So in order to get more outreach and more people knowing about that, I decided to make the club official with a constitution,” Pham said.

Circus Club plans to host future events and performances at NIU once time has passed and once other club members are interested in and comfortable with performing.

Good.  There's always reason to find a circus and go to it, even if that involves an intrastate rivalry with Illinois State and their Gamma Phi Circus.  Who knows, some of the members might dig into the history of the itinerant circus, including the instructional value of the menagerie, and the interaction of humans and big beasts, and become advocates for that dimension of the circus arts.

BEFORE THE FREE FREAK SHOW ON THE CAMPUS QUADRANGLE.

Oh, I could get in trouble for that!  "The fever swamps of the Perpetually Aggrieved are perpetually entertaining, and you don't even have to toss the barker a quarter whenever you want a look, there are curiosities only a click away."  Indeed, even calling attention could get me in trouble!  "It's the ultimate post-modern sideshow, in which all of the words on the bannerline are triggering, or micro-aggressive."

In any event, once upon a time the itinerant circus brought the curiosities to town, for you to gawk at, and all for a quarter.  "On a purchasing-power adjusted basis, is a ticket to a Britney Spears ticket cheaper than a ticket to the late nineteenth century P. T. Barnum sideshow?"

Not too long ago, though, the Winnebago County Fair set up for its weekend run, and along the paths leading to the grandstand for the rodeo or tractor pull there was an honest-to-Clyde Beatty bannerline!

No extra charge to wander in and have a look.

Exotic, fossilized life form, perhaps from outer space, or stone idol carved with primitive tools?  You decide.

For years, P. T. Barnum's Fejee Mermaid was thought to have been lost in the fire at his Coney Island Hall of Curiosities.  Well, no, he had sold that to an east coast collector, and it now tours with this exhibit.  Or not.  That furry fish behind?  Apparently insulating scales confer evolutionary advantage in polar water, although if fish are cold-blooded, well, this is a sideshow exhibit.

NEITHER CABBAGE PATCHES NOR DAFFODIL BEDS WERE DISRUPTED.

Dear reader, recall what a proper circus looks like.

I have been adamant that a real circus includes elephants, and I model that circus.

I've also noted that circuses are not inherently detrimental to the welfare of elephants.

But the big cities have been passing job-killing regulations that lead to unemployed elephants, as the downside of running what you call The Greatest Show on Earth and what students of circus know as Big Bertha is that you have to play the big cities.

Subsequent years have featured ever more restrictions on animal exhibits, on the transportation of circus animals, and on importing young exotics for the circus.

AS THE SWAP MEET SEASON WINDS DOWN.

There is never a bad time to work on the model railroad.  The train show and swap meet season tends to run from November into March.  The Karlson Brothers Circus showed at last weekend's Delavan (one of two Wisconsin towns claiming to be midwestern home of the itinerant circus) for the first time in five years.  That ballyhooed March 2020 show never happened, because the politicians panicked.

The college mascots section of the North Woods Menagerie was out entertaining children of all ages.

The Chicago area O Scale swap meet and show are under way, and there might be developments from that show to report on next week.

THE KILLJOYS NEVER REST.

After gutting the itinerant circus, they're going after the rodeo.

Which groups are behind the anti-rodeo pushes? Townhall readers will recognize two familiar groups.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) - a serial alarmist organization - is a big proponent of rodeo bans, writing on their website: “Countless animals have paid with their lives to satisfy humans’ desire to play cowboy in events such as calf roping, bull riding, steer wrestling, and bronc riding.

PETA also advocates banning the American pastime by urging its supporters to “work to institute a state or local ban on calf roping, the event in which cruelty is most easily documented. Since many rodeo circuits require calf roping, eliminating it can result in the overall elimination of rodeo shows.”

Animal Legal Defense Fund is a litigious outfit behind the bans. The group is also vehemently against predator management, hunting, and wildlife management.

Predator management?  Yeah, let's take the side of the bear and wolves on the range.  I can think of no strategy more likely to turn county fairs into safe spaces for Normals than they already are.

That's the presentation of colors before the Big Hat Rodeo opened its performance at the Ogle County Fair, first weekend in August.  The rodeo shares some show elements with the itinerant circus, including equestrian performances and clowns getting into the act.  (And yes, there were Wild West themed itinerant circuses as well as Wild West acts to sell more popcorn while the clowns and aerialists were packing up and loading out.)  Plus country girls in their short shorts and cowboy boots cheering for their friends riding for their 4-H clubs.

Calf roping and bronco riding, though?  How did these geniuses think horses got domesticated, or beeves got rounded up?  That is, the rodeo is a competition showcasing the skills involved in ranching and herding.  Oh, and sometimes the calf gets the better of the rider.

Columnist Gabriella Hoffman concludes, "Rodeo, like hunting and fishing, is pure Americana. It must be protected and preserved at all costs."  Lest all of those entertainments or pursuits go the way of the itinerant circus with elephants and big cats.

SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD, KELLY AND VIOLA.

Wisconsin has not outlawed elephant acts in circuses.  The cohort of available elephants to perform, though, is growing smaller and older.

Every August, circus performers, animals and seasonal workers leave Circus World as the Baraboo museum’s summer performance season comes to an end. But after this year, for the first time since the Ringling Brothers arrived in Baraboo in the late 1800s, the elephants won’t be returning.

After this season, the elephants will move into retirement at the Endangered Ark Foundation in Oklahoma.

Circus World Executive Director Scott O’Donnell is sad to see them go.

It will not be the end of the itinerant circus, or of Circus World.

[D]oes O’Donnell think that the elephants’ exit will spell the end of the circus? Not by a long shot.

“The death knell of the circus has been rung ever since it first started,” he said. “When we went from horse-drawn wagons to trains, they thought that was the end. When we stopped exclusively performing under big top tents, they thought that was the end. And when some French-Canadian fire-eaters had a vision and created Cirque du Soleil, they said that was the end.

“But there’s still room for all of these things in the circus. Circus arts are so nimble and able to react, and that’s what’s exciting,” he said.

As long as there are acrobats, aerialists, equestrians, jugglers, and unicyclists there will be circus.  Performing elephants, though?  As the current stars get older, it's not as if you can ring up a lumberman in Thailand and have one shipped over, and Public Opinion isn't as favorable to the pachyderms as it once was.

Although Circus World initially planned to keep elephants even after Feld made its announcement, that changed in 2018, and Circus World started planning for the elephants to retire by 2023.

“When we consulted with our vet teams and animal care staff five years ago about our elephants, we knew this vista was coming to us, and there’s just not a next generation of circus elephants,” O’Donnell said. “If there was, we would continue to have them here, but as a species, they’re very difficult to breed, there’s not a robust gene pool in North America, and they just need our undying attention and commitment as the critically endangered species they are.”

Feld own the Ringling Barnum name, and they will be touring again, if sans elephants or train.