Elephants in rail transport

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Cow elephant leaves a boxcar - Leipzig 1952

Elephants in rail transport have a special position compared to other animals. On the one hand, they are used as working elephants to move wagons , and because of their size and weight, they pose special requirements for transport and also pose a greater risk than other animals in the event of an accident.

Maneuvering with elephants

In the main distribution countries of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) , India , Thailand and Sri Lanka , working elephants were used to maneuver freight wagons .

Transportation of elephants

The elephants in front of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Train (1907)

For the transport of circus elephants , a number of railway companies, but also circus companies themselves, kept special freight wagons in many countries . The transport of elephants was always the focus of public attention when a circus traveled by train.

Germany

In Germany in 1925, three “ elephant transport special wagons ” were built for the Circus Krone at the wagon factory Josef Rathgeber . This first white, later yellow car had excess length, 31.5 m loading area and had to normal boxcar between the axles a lower base, and large sliding doors. The wagons were used as private goods wagons and were initially used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn and later by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) with its home station at Munich Hauptbahnhof . They could accommodate up to five elephants. After the Second World War, two of these wagons were scrapped because smaller elephants could also be accommodated in normal freight wagons. Only for the largest elephants was a copy kept until the end of rail transport at the Krone Circus in 1999, which was last used by the DB under the generic name Hkko. This car originally had the road number 516 596, later 21 80 020 0 700-1 and 23 80 200 2 000-8, and has been preserved in a museum.

Switzerland

The Swiss Circus Knie has also been using special elephant transport wagons since 1933, which were run by the SBB as the Hcks class. In contrast to the lowered floor of the German wagons, these were given a raised roof to allow the necessary loading height.

United States

In the USA , the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus also transported the elephants in its two special trains in specially designed wagons until May 2016. Since then, elephants - and therefore also their transport - have been avoided due to increased animal welfare requirements .

Operational incidents

Germany

Nerd

When three elephants of the Hagenbeck circus were transported on the Mecklenburg-Pomerania Narrow Gauge Railway (MPSB) in mid-1930 in an open freight car, one of these cars derailed in a curve near Nerdin . The cause of the accident was suspected to be excessive movement of the elephant. After this event, the accident site was referred to as the “elephant curve”.

Wuppertal

Tuffi's jump was artistically recorded on a wall near the scene of the accident

On July 21, 1950, the Althoff circus had its teenage elephant Tuffi ride the Wuppertal suspension railway for advertising purposes . The animal, frightened by the driving noise, broke through the side wall of the vehicle after a few meters between the Alter Markt and Adlerbrücke stations and fell into the Wupper , hardly injuring itself. The reporters on board panic and there were some injuries. Franz Althoff and the responsible head of the traffic department of the Wuppertaler Stadtwerke , who had approved the trip, were sentenced to fines in criminal proceedings for dangerous interference with rail traffic . The court found the suspension railway unsuitable as a means of transport for elephants - not entirely surprising.

The incident became so well known that it still depicts local folklore today, is used for advertising purposes and the Cologne-Wuppertal milk works even named their dairy products after Tuffi. However, the postcards and photos available from the accident are all photomontages . Nobody captured the moment of the fall in the picture.

North America

Jumbo after his collision with the locomotive

On September 15, 1885, Jumbo , arguably the most famous elephant of his time, died when he was hit by an express freight train on the Grand Trunk Railway in St. Thomas , Ontario . The Barnum and Bailey: The Greatest Show on Earth Circus had pitched its tents next to the railway line. With the permission of the railway company, the animals were led across the tracks between the circus train, which was parked on a siding, and the tent. In the accident, Jumbo and another elephant were caught by the arriving freight train and pushed into the circus train. The locomotive, its tender and two wagons of the freight train derailed.

In 1891 the Southern Pacific Railroad carried an elephant on a train. Near Delta , California , he used his trunk to pull the retaining bolt out of the coupling and release it. The locomotive crew only noticed after 30 km that the train had been separated .

India

In the Chapramari nature reserve , in the Jalpaiguri district in the Indian state of West Bengal , there were several serious accidents between trains and elephants. In an accident on February 8, 2002, one elephant was killed and two injured, in 2007 a total of 20 elephants were hit by trains in several accidents and died, and in another railway accident in 2010 seven elephants were killed. The most serious accident occurred on November 13, 2013, when a train drove into a herd of elephants, which also killed 7 animals and injured others.

Namesake

VBZ Ce 4/4 (elephant) of the Zurich transport company (then: Zurich city tram )

The first four-axle tram car series in Zurich was given the designation VBZ Ce 4/4 “Elefant” , as was the last large steam locomotive SBB C 5/6 delivered to the Swiss Federal Railways .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ At Stern there are 22 images of elephant transports and the corresponding vehicles.
  2. ↑ Length over the buffers: 13.9 m, loading length 11.9 m.
  3. ↑ Shown with this label in Stern, p. 2.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Photo of an elephant maneuvering a boxcar
  2. ^ Indian Railways - The British Legacy. With photos of shunting elephants .
  3. ↑ Stern, p. 84, illustration by Stern, frontispiece , from " Deutscher Bundesbahn-Kalender ", sheet: March 15-21, 1953, and p. 16 from "Deutscher Reichsbahn-Kalender" 12-14 March 1934, Pp. 27, 36 (No. 519 095), 84, 85.
  4. ↑ Stern, pp. 84, 108.
  5. ↑ Discussion about the Krone elephant transport wagons at Drehscheibe-online.de
  6. ↑ Material storage trolley Hcks 202 dsf-koblenz.ch
  7. ↑ Discussion on the knee elephant car in a Swiss model railway forum .
  8. ↑ Photo in: Stern, p. 121.
  9. ↑ Stern, p. 120; NN: A diva disembarks . In: Geo 4/2016, p. 16f.
  10. ↑ NN: A diva disembarks . In: Geo 4/2016, p. 16f.
  11. ^ Wolf-Dietger Machel: The Mecklenburg-Pomerania narrow-gauge railway . 2nd edition Stuttgart 1997. ISBN 3-613-71053-6 , pp. 127f.
  12. ^ Jumbo the Circus Elephant and his Tragic Death
  13. ^ Jan Bondeson: The Cat Orchestra & the Elephant Butler . Stroud 2006. ISBN 0-7524-3934-0 , pp. 132f.
  14. ↑ George B. Abdill: Pacific Slope Railroads . Seattle 1959, p. 126.
  15. ↑ NN: Elephant hit by train dies . In: The Times of India v. February 12, 2002.
  16. ↑ Alexander Abad-Santos: Elephants In India Keep Getting Killed by Trains . In: The Atlantic Wire v. November 14, 2013.
  17. ^ Somen Sengupta: Call of the Wild . In: The Statesman v. November 11, 2012.