Farmington, New Hampshire, USA
1938 - Circus Train Wreck

FARMINGTON, N. H., July 22.- Five men were killed and eight were injured today when five seventy-foot steel flat-cars in a 20-car train bearing the performers and equipment of the Bernardi Greater Shows from Laconia, N. H., to Gloucester, Mass., were wrecked by a falling drawbar two miles south of here.

All of the men killed were laborers of the traveling carnival troupe and were lying or sitting under and among the wagons and other show
equipment to escape the drenching rain.

A check-up of the employes of the show tonight indicated a possibility that two other men might have been buried beneath the wreck. Crews from Rochester and Concord worked until late in an attempt to find them.

Identification of the dead was difficult because the laborers were known mainly by their nicknames, but four of the five bodies were identified as
those of Reginald Paggett of Lyndhburg, Va.; George Munroe of Baltimore, Md.: William M. Glienicka, colored, of 2.642 Orthodox Avenue,
Philadelphia, and Clarence Williams, colored, of Charleston, W. Va..

The injured are all under treatment at the Rochester Hospital, but none of the injuries are serious.

More than 200 employes of the traveling show were on board, the performers being in two sleepers at
the rear of the train. Shortly after noon, when the heavily laden train was making good time on a down grade near here, a key pin dropped out and released the heavy steel draw-bar under the sixth flat-car in the train. The heavy bar plowed into
the track bed and lifted the front end of the car off the tracks.

The four cars behind left the rails also, the heavy gear tumbling to the ground in a chaos of steel, wood and canvas.

Within 40 minutes after the wreck, all the injured had been taken to the hospital at Rochester, and a short time later, crews were at work digging the men from the sand and tangled gear.

Officials of the show company said tonight that they plan to reunite the train in Dove, and to go through with their engagement in Gloucester.
Loss to equipment was estimated at $25,000 and $30,000, the greater part of the equipment of the wrecked flat cars being a total loss.

The New York Times
New York, New York
July 22, 1928

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