If you are old enough, you may remember the Triang Giraffe car, where the said animal ducked its head on approaching a low obstacle. I never had one, and would confess that I never even wanted one!
Tri-ang Railways Novelty Wagons, R.348 Giraffe Car (Tri-ang Railways catalogue, Ninth Edition, 1963)
But fact is often stranger than fiction! The Great Eastern Railway once had to transport a stuffed giraffe from Harwich docks, and came up with this loading diagram to get it within their loading gauge. This could make an interesting model, even with the giraffe wrapped in canvas to protect it from the weather…..
And three great pictures of London Victoria in 1920, 1960 and 1963. I hope that no-one opened the carriage doors when the train arrived in 1920. The carnage would have been something to behold!
esngblog 
The Great Eastern’s successors also had problems with a circus train, a former work colleague told me about it. It was on the westbound platform at Leyton when it was used by the Central line and BR for goods trains. The circus train had stopped to wait for the route to clear towards Stratford and was just about to depart when someone on the platform noticed that an elephant had put its head out of its wagon, this would have struck the overbridge at the end of the platform.
LikeLike
Thanks, that’s another good prototype for everything! The railways must have dreaded circus trains moving around the country.
LikeLike