I worked for C&W in 1964 or 1965. It was advertised as the largest railway show in the country. Probably was since the other shows had switched to trucks. We were very busy. Played a few still spots but not many. Played county and state fairs. Carnivals have always been big in the south and some of the county fairs were larger than some of the state fairs in the Midwest. Played Georgia, N and S Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Va,
But the part that was most memorable was the civil rights movement. C&W was a segregated show. It was formed in a segregated manner and it played in a segregated way. All of the train crew were Black and all the carnies were white. In a typical spot we might play 4 or 5 days with one day having a matinee. In that case we would have a 1/2 day in which Blacks were welcome as customers or, in some cases, it might be an entire evening. Some of the joints would close because they didn't want to associate with Blacks but most stayed open. We (white carnies) had almost no association with any of the train crew and they never came on the midway. The only interface we had was loading and unloading the train. Carnies would use tractors to move the wagons to the tracks and the train crew would use their tractors to load them. Two wagons per flatbed and 50 flatbeds so there could have been 100 wagons and there were almost that many but the sides of the wagons had painted "100 RIDES." and that was never true. A number of the wagons, esp. the older ones, were along for the ride. They never were unloaded. But it sure made an impression on every little town we drove through.
There was an incident in which there was an armed confrontation. Blacks v whites. But few were injured and those not seriously. Scary, though.
Hope this helps.