Nicole Sanders nearly signed a deal to do cannon in South Africa, but it fell apart at the last minute. She was offered a contract at a smaller American circus, but says the pay was less than minimum wage, with no health insurance. She turned it down.

Ivan Vargas is joining a pirate-themed dinner theatre in Myrtle Beach called Pirates Voyage, where he’ll be learning to sword fight and stunt dive. The Wheel of Steel act is joining a circus in Spain. The Danguir high wire troupe are going back to Morocco, where they are semi-finalists on the Simon Cowell-produced TV show Arabs Got Talent.

For some, they’re driving towards permanent addresses, towards apartments with full size stoves and refrigerators, to nine-to-five jobs and consistent wifi signals, toward high schools with homecomings and proms, utility bills and bathtubs instead of showers that suddenly - with an odd curve of the train tracks - tilt so far to the side that the water starts pooling and overflowing, and has to be bailed out the window. A quieter life.

Performing, you know you’re not going to make a load of money, but you want to be able to survive.”

She catches a flight to New Orleans, Louisiana, to stay with her mother while she figures out her next move.

The last person at the train yard in Providence is ringmaster Kristen Michelle Wilson. She was hired to be Ringling Bros first female ringmaster, and had held the title for exactly one month when she found out that she would also be its last. Before being whisked into the national spotlight as the face of Circus XTREME, she’d been playing a ringmaster in a circus-themed dinner theatre in Orlando, Florida. She’s heading back to her hometown of Tallahassee without concrete plans for the future.

With much groaning and shuddering, the train cars start moving down the track heading north, and slowly pick up speed. The bright red “RINGLING BROS AND BARNUM & BAILEY” banner stamped on the side of each car rolls past Wilson dozens and dozens of times.

The Red Unit train will join the Blue Unit train in New Jersey in preparation for their final performance on 21 May in Uniondale, New York. Along the way, the cars that have been purchased at auction (minimum bid: $10,000) will be uncoupled and left behind to be picked up by their new owners. The Misers bought one that will be delivered to their cannonball training grounds in Peru, Indiana, and used as a guest house. At least one is destined to become a dinner train in Cincinnati, Ohio, albeit with the Ringling Bros name scraped off. What is left of the train will make the long, final journey south to the circus’ headquarters in Florida. Unsold cars will be scrapped for metal.

The final car disappears over the horizon, the shrill squealing noises get tinier and tinier until they’re gone.

An older man in a ball cap who was watching the departure approaches a sleep-deprived Wilson, who’s standing alone outside her moving truck with tears streaming down her face.

“Excuse me,” he asks in a thick New England accent. “Are you the ringmaster?”

Wilson answers simply, “Yeah,” and they both laugh joylessly.