A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters (palanquins) and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use, though some are also used to transport goods. A public passenger vehicle would not usually be called a carriage – terms for such include stagecoach, charabanc and omnibus. It may be light, smart and fast or heavy, large and comfortable or luxurious. Carriages normally have suspension using leaf springs, elliptical springs or leather strapping. Working vehicles such as the (four-wheeled) wagon and (two-wheeled) cart share important parts of the history of the carriage, as does too the fast (two-wheeled) chariot.
A hackney or hackney carriage is a carriage or car for hire. A hackney of a more expensive or high class was called a remise.
The hansom cab is a kind of horse-drawn carriage designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York. The vehicle was developed and tested by Hansom in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England. Originally called the Hansom safety cab, it was designed to combine speed with safety, with a low centre of gravity for safe cornering. Hansom's original design was modified by John Chapman and several others to improve its practicability, but retained Hansom's name.
An intercity bus service or intercity coach service, also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public transport service using coaches to carry passengers significant distances between different cities, towns, or other populated areas. Unlike a transit bus service, which has frequent stops throughout a city or town, an intercity bus service generally has a single stop at one location in or near a city, and travels long distances without stopping at all. Intercity bus services may be operated by government agencies or private industry, for profit and not for profit. Intercity coach travel can serve areas or countries with no train services, or may be set up to compete with trains by providing a more flexible or cheaper alternative.
A post-chaise is a fast carriage for traveling post built in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It usually had a closed body on four wheels, sat two to four persons, and was drawn by two or four horses.
The Highway Act 1835 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was one of the Highway Acts 1835 to 1885.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport.
In Great Britain, a mail coach was a stagecoach built to a Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. Mail was held in a box at the rear where the only Royal Mail employee, an armed guard, stood. Passengers were taken at a premium fare. There was seating for four passengers inside and more outside with the driver. The guard's seat could not be shared. This distribution system began in 1784. In Ireland the same service began in 1789.
The Kilmarnock and Troon Railway was an early railway line in Ayrshire, Scotland. It was constructed to bring coal from pits around Kilmarnock to coastal shipping at Troon Harbour, and passengers were carried.
The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway was an early railway built to convey coal from pits in the vicinity of Dalkeith into the capital. It was a horse-operated line, with a terminus at St Leonards on the south side of Arthur's Seat.
The Stage Coaches Act 1788 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain to regulate the use of stagecoaches. It came into force from 1 November 1788. It stipulated that no more than six people were permitted to ride upon the roof, and no more than two upon the box, of any coach or carriage traveling for hire. The penalty was to be a fine of forty shillings per person over the limit, levied on the driver; if the driver was the owner, they were to be fined four pounds per person. If the driver could not be found, then the owner was liable to the 40s penalty. The Act was later amended and clarified by the Stage Coaches Act 1790.
A horse trailer or horse van is used to transport horses. There are many different designs, ranging in size from small units capable of holding two or three horses, able to be pulled by a pickup truck or even a SUV; to gooseneck designs that carry six to eight horses, usually pulled by 1-ton dually-style pickups. There are also large semi-trailers that can haul a significant number of animals. In the UK, a horsebox may also refer to a motorised vehicle adapted to carry horses, or a railway vehicle specifically designed to carry horses.
Cobb & Co is the name of a company that operated a fleet of stagecoaches in Australia in the late 19th century. Cobb & Co themselves did not operate in New Zealand officially but their name was used by many private stage coach operators.
A coach is originally a large, usually closed, four-wheeled carriage with two or more horses harnessed as a team, controlled by a coachman and/or one or more postilions. It had doors in the sides, with generally a front and a back seat inside and, for the driver, a small, usually elevated seat in front called a box, box seat or coach box. The term "coach" first came into use in the 15th century, and spread across Europe. There are a number of types of coaches, with differentiations based on use, location and size. Special breeds of horses, such as the now-extinct Yorkshire Coach Horse, were developed to pull the vehicles.
The passenger coaches of the Great Western Railway (GWR) were many and varied, ranging from four and six-wheeled vehicles for the original broad gauge line of 1838, through to bogie coaches up to 70 feet (21 m) long which were in service through to 1947. Vacuum brakes, bogies and through-corridors all came into use during the nineteenth century, and in 1900 the first electrically lit coaches were put into service. The 1920s saw some vehicles fitted with automatic couplings and steel bodies.
Stage wagons are light horse-drawn or mule-drawn public passenger vehicles often referred to as stagecoaches. Like stagecoaches they made long scheduled trips using stage stations or posts where the horses would be replaced by fresh horses. Stage wagons were intended for use in particularly difficult conditions where standard stagecoaches would be too big and too heavy.
The Keighley and Kendal Turnpike was a road built in 1753 by a turnpike trust between Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire and Kendal in Westmorland, England. The primary instigators were in Settle. The road followed a modified ancient route through Craven. It necessitated bridge widening, reorientation in some of the towns it passed and the relocation of inns and stables. The road was of great benefit to commerce in the northwest but proved a financial loss as the cost of repairing wear caused by heavy traffic was underestimated. The trust's records were lost when it closed.
A Stage station or Relay station, also known as a staging post, a posting station, or stage stop is a place where an exhausted horse or horses could be replaced by fresh animals. A long journey was much faster with no delay to rest horses.
Concord stagecoaches are horse-drawn stagecoaches which employ a style of suspension and construction particularly suited to North America's early 19th century roads. Leather thoroughbraces suspend passengers who are in constant motion while the stagecoach is moving. The swaying is accepted by passengers for the shock absorbing action of the leather straps and for the way the special motion eases the stagecoach over very rough patches of roadway. The coaches were first developed and built by coachbuilder J Stephen Abbott and wheelwright Lewis Downing of Concord, New Hampshire. The expense of the high quality of the vehicle's construction had to be set against its structure's good lasting qualities improved by the relative smoothness of its thoroughbrace suspension system. These features attracted passengers.
