When the tents are struck after the last performance, the pageant of color and daring called the "Greatest Show on Earth" becomes a silent line of tractors, trucks and wagons, run into place on special flat cars. Circus folks take to their special railway cars. Tomorrow afternoon's performance is slated for a town several hundred miles away--and Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows rely on the railroads to get them there.

In the tower at the Southern's Gest Street Yard in Cincinnati on the night of August 3, the superintendent of terminals, a trainmaster and a yard-master watched the hands of the electric clock inch past midnight into Monday morning as they waited for word of the exact time of arrival of a special train. Nearing Cincinnati on the New York Central was the first section of a three-section circus train carrying the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows from Columbus, Ohio. At Cincinnati the Southern would take over to move the trains to Lexington, Ky where the big top would go up for a performance Monday' afternoon.

Everything that could be done in advance had been done. Ready and waiting at the yard office, the way- bill for the three separate sections needed to have the numbers of the cars in each section filled in on arrival at Gest Street, Transportation charges had been calculated and the bill already settled by the circus agent, A yard switch engine waited in a siding for instructions to pick up the first section from the New York Central and bring it into the yard. A three- unit road diesel for the first section was already on its way to the yard, the other locomotives would follow as needed. Men from the Southern's special service department-one assigned to accompany each section of the circus train passed the time in conversation as they waited on a bench in front of the yard office.

When the first section arrived there would be a flurry of action as the road locomotive coupled onto the head end and the caboose to the rear: Lanterns would trace bobbing patterns of light as the car inspectors ranged along the sides of the train for their careful look at the cars-wheels, couplers and brake rigging. The road crew would climb aboard, the diesel locomotive come to throbbing life and, as the train glided out onto the main line southbound to Lexington, the cars would gleam briefly in the glow of the floodlights, revealing perhaps one wakeful elephant poking a curious trunk out of the side door of a stock car. Then another wait, and a repeat performance with the second and third sections as they arrived.

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Crowds wait at Lexington, Ky., for afternoon show of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus the Southern helped bring from Columbus, Ohio, the night before.

Through the night the trains would be rolling, white flags fluttering from the locomotive cabs as these "extras" wove their way into the regular pattern of the Southern's traffic on the CNO&TP. All in all, the three trains would have almost 70 circus-owned railroad cars-coaches for the circus people, stock cars for some of the animals and flat cars loaded with tractors, trailers and trucks.

At Lexington, other Southern switch engines would place the cars for unloading: coaches and stock cars at the passenger station, and the equipment-loaded flat cars at industrial sidings in town where unloading ramps would be available or could be easily set up and the circus trucks and trailers could be driven directly from the flat cars to the street.

A switch engine brings into the Southern's Gest Street Yard one of the circus train sections received from the New York Central. In foreground on train are seat wagons for grandstand.

Tractors and trailers have been lined up on flat cars for easy unloading at the Lexington siding.

Third and last section of the circus train arrives at the Southern's passenger station at Lexington. A switch engine will move flat cars of equipment to a siding where they can be unloaded conveniently.

At the Lexington passenger station a crowd watches circus horses unloaded from special stock cars. Each rider leads two other horses as they move toward the circus grounds on the

At the unloading sidings more Lexington people have gathered to watch as a switch engine the cuts of cars for unloading.

Down the ramp to the street a tractor hauls an important piece of equipment-the dining wagon.

Before daylight the first tractors and wagons would rumble down the ramps, through the empty streets toward the lot at the edge of Lexington where the "greatest show on earth" was to be set up-big top, side show tents, work tents and all. As daylight grew, so would the crowds of spectators for the arrival of the second and third sections. They'd gather at the passenger station to watch the circus horses unloaded from stock cars and at the industrial siding to see the world's most efficient nomads putting together their road caravan. Everything would go like clock- work as the tractors hauled trailer after trailer down the ramp until finally the lines of flat cars stood empty.

While the Southern delivered the now-empty circus cars to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (scheduled to handle the circus out of Lexington on this trip), the circus grounds-only a vast vacant lot the evening before-would be astir with an ordered frenzy of activity. The side show tent would be going up, its front blossoming with brightly-colored signs hawking the wonders within. Refreshment trailers and ticket office wagons would be wheeled into place along the midway leading to the main entrance. At last, out of the maze of straining cables and flattened lumps of canvas, the big top would rise.

More tractors and equipment roll down the ramp at the other siding as they head for the lot where the "big top" is being set up.

A maze of rope secure. the "big top"- the portable canvas auditorium used by the circus

Tractors haul numbered seat wagons into place. Once opened, the wagons will form the circus grandstand.

Circus-goers crowd the main entrance.

Aerialists in glittering tights wheel in dizzy circles at "the greatest show on earth."

In a cage-wagon, the big cats take it easy under the stares of curious circus fans; later they'll perform in a netting-topped cage under the "big top."

(Circus people have few equals in this business of living and working while constantly on the move. Every piece of equipment has its place 'and every man his specific job. Armies have profitably taken lessons from the circus in how to feed, clothe, house and care for hundreds of people in the field, and how to transport masses of men and equipment. When the circus strikes tents after a performance, the big top and it's cluster of auxiliary tents and trailers seem almost to melt away-Ieaving in place of the evening's pageant of color and daring before a grandstand packed with thousands of people only the empty wheel- churned earth and a silent line of trucks and wagons. In the new location, the same cluster of tents seems to blossom like magic.)

Finally the crowd would surge into the big. tent, and stream up the aisles into the rows of seats. To the blare of the circus band the "greatest show on earth" would begin its pageant of glittering costumes, jugglers, tight wire performers, acrobats; clowns, prancing ponies, lions bounding through their paces in the big cage and aerialists wheeling dizzy arcs near the tent top.

All this would take place within the next dozen hours or so. And in Gest Street Yard, as the hands of the clock marched on into Monday morning, the rumble of wheels on the track leading around the Loop to the entrance of the yard signaled the approach of the first section. The job of moving the circus had begun. The Southern was ready.