LOCAL : All Stop for the Big Top as Train’s Circus Cars Jump Anaheim Tracks

The Greatest Show on Earth caused the greatest commuting headache in Anaheim as six circus train cars derailed this morning, blocking Katella Avenue during rush hour.

About 75 performers and crew of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were aboard the cars when they derailed about 5 a.m. on the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks north of Katella and just east of the Santa Ana Freeway. No one was injured and none of the railroad cars carried circus animals.

“We didn’t break the elephants’ trunks,” quipped Southern Pacific spokesman Jerry Pera in San Francisco. He blamed the accident on a faulty track switch that failed to operate as the 44-car train was being assembled to head for the show’s next stop, a four-night stand in Long Beach, after appearances at the Anaheim Convention Center.

He said the locomotives later hauled the equipment and animal cars to Long Beach and the performers took charter buses. Crews were expected to have the derailed cars back on the tracks by this afternoon.

Circus spokeswoman Susannah Smith said the accident didn’t delay the show. “We haven’t had any serious accidents in the past 20 years that I can remember,” she said. “But occasionally we have a glitch.”

The derailment led to closure of the Katella off-ramp on the Santa Ana Freeway for about an hour, the California Highway Patrol said. It also led to some rerouting of traffic by city officials to get commuters around the street blockage.