One of the most iconic of the special purpose vehicles used by circuses, no other industry used anything quite like the spool truck. It is used to roll up the entire big top for efficient loading and unloading. Having worked the system where the sections are unlaced from each other, folded into bundles and hoisted onto a truck by main muscle power (a real treat when the canvas is wet and triple heavy), I have great admiration for this unit.
This particular version is unusual in that the entire big top fits on one spool. Most spool trucks mounted two spools, with the top unlaced at one place and rolled up in two parts. The spool is operated by means of a power-take-off with a chain drive.
This model is missing a cross bar from the top corners of the side walls, you can see the nail where it was attached. It is also missing the chain that runs between the two gear wheels on the side. Other than that, a little cleaning and some detail painting on the left side will fix it right up.
For the upcoming post, we will unspool that big top and put it up.
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