The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey train rolled through town for the last time on April 17.
The transport service for the ‘greatest show on earth’ was traveling from Worcester to Manchester, New Hampshire, where the animals and acrobats will perform April 21 – 23, when a few residents caught snapshots. It came back through the other way on April 24.
Mike Perron, Lynn Ellington Jones, and Angela Crawford all captured the event with cell phone images.
“This was taken in Graniteville by Healy Oil on Monday afternoon,” Perron stated. “…this was as it was passing through — the final time the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus train will go through town.”
The two touring shows will end for good next month. On May 7 the red unit “Circus Extreme” tour will end at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island, and on May 21 the blue unit “Out of This World” tour will conclude at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
A press release posted by the circus’s parent company, Feld Entertainment, announced the ending on Jan. 15, saying high costs together with a decline in ticket sales, made the circus “an unsustainable business.”
The notice said that sales declined when the Asian elephants were phased out of the show. In May, Feld Entertainment removed all remaining elephants from its traveling units to its Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida between Tampa and Orlando.
Juliette Feld, Feld Entertainment’s Chief Operating Officer was quoted in the notice as saying, “This was a difficult business decision to make, but by ending the circus tours, we will be able to concentrate on the other lines of business within the Feld Entertainment portfolio. Now that we have made this decision, as a company, and as a family, we will strive to support our circus performers and crew in making the transition to new opportunities.”
According to the press release, Feld Entertainment’s portfolio includes Marvel Universe LIVE!, Monster Jam, Monster Energy Supercross and Disney On Ice.
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