Circus Train Accident Tragic
from: The Lakeland, FL Ledger
Saturday, July 23, 2011
On a foggy January morning, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus' private train trundled through Lakeland on its way from St. Petersburg to Orlando for three days of performances that were to start that night. It was about 9:15, and many of the "Blue Unit's" 150 performers and crew were still sleeping after the show the night before.
Kydyrjan Boulibekov, a circus horse rider from the former Soviet Union, had just woken up to use the restroom. He was walking down the train corridor when his car went off the tracks.
"Maybe it saved me, 'cause where I slept, the refrigerator fell down," Boulibekov said.
Seventeen of the train's 53 cars had derailed. Photos of the wreck, which happened near U.S. 92 and Fish Hatchery Road, showed a zigzagged pile of silver-and-red rail cars, many of them on their sides.
The Jan. 13, 1994, wreck is likely the most notorious in Polk County history. In fact, there are many in this county who still remember the circus train wreck, even though it's now been 17 years.
read more:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20110723/COLUMNISTS/107235001/1001/business?Title=Circus-Train-Accident-Tragic
from: The Lakeland, FL Ledger
Saturday, July 23, 2011
On a foggy January morning, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus' private train trundled through Lakeland on its way from St. Petersburg to Orlando for three days of performances that were to start that night. It was about 9:15, and many of the "Blue Unit's" 150 performers and crew were still sleeping after the show the night before.
Kydyrjan Boulibekov, a circus horse rider from the former Soviet Union, had just woken up to use the restroom. He was walking down the train corridor when his car went off the tracks.
"Maybe it saved me, 'cause where I slept, the refrigerator fell down," Boulibekov said.
Seventeen of the train's 53 cars had derailed. Photos of the wreck, which happened near U.S. 92 and Fish Hatchery Road, showed a zigzagged pile of silver-and-red rail cars, many of them on their sides.
The Jan. 13, 1994, wreck is likely the most notorious in Polk County history. In fact, there are many in this county who still remember the circus train wreck, even though it's now been 17 years.
read more:
http://www.theledger.com/article/20110723/COLUMNISTS/107235001/1001/business?Title=Circus-Train-Accident-Tragic
No comments:
Post a Comment