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The train used to be the most important means of transport for the Knie circus. That chapter is now a thing of the past.
Elephants getting off the train in front of enthusiastic onlookers, giraffes stretching their long necks out of a tarpaulin, a parade of horses, llamas or zebras running along the platform – all that was once. According to the Linth-Zeitung, the Knie circus and SBB Cargo are ending their collaboration.
Investments and new demands
According to the SBB, the reasons are high investments in new rolling stock, for example, and changing demands on the part of Circus Knie. “Despite intensive efforts, no long-term solution” could be found.
Legend:
Gone are the days when elephants held their trunks out of the train in the wind.
Keystone/Hans-Ueli Bloechliger
For more than 100 years, the national circus transported its many materials from one Swiss city to another by rail. In recent years, however, not everything has been transported by train. Knie was the last circus to travel by train.
Special wagons for the elephants
It was always a spectacle when the circus train cars came into town. Fredy Knie junior (76) remembers his childhood: “We were loaded in the evening, unloaded the next morning and driven to the circus square. Then we got up again. It was a kind of sleeper train.”
A long time ago, animals were also transported by rail. “The animals seem to have liked the trip,” can be heard from television archive images as a camel peeks out of the opening of a wagon. There was a real fleet, says Fredy Knie. “We had to raise the wagons for the elephants. There were special roofs. We had two extra trains and a lot of animals on the rails.”
A look into the archive
However, animals have not been part of the train transports for a long time. Since this year, caravans and material transport have also come to an end. It’s too expensive. “We can no longer cope financially with the new requirements,” says Fredy Knie.
For railway expert Hans Roth, the move from rail to road is understandable: “If you add everything up – fewer guest performance venues, fewer transports – it is almost logical that it no longer pays off as it used to.”
New tour will premiere soon
Of course, it’s sad that the train is gone, but the circus is also about other things, says Fredy Knie junior: “People come because of the circus performance, they have to like it. I look forward, not back.” Preparations for the new performances are already in full swing.
After the nine-month tour in 2022, which, according to the company, was one of the most successful in circus history and included around 300 shows, this year’s tour is already in the starting blocks. The premiere is scheduled for March 10th.