Coaches, Carriages, and Carts: Type, Use, Design, and Industry

By Gloria Austin

Horse-drawn vehicles are the foundation of modern transportation. These vehicles produced many innovations used today, such as the spring. Other than observing a horse put to a carriage, there are proper ways to identify these vehicles and their unique characteristics. One style of  driving, called “four-in-hand”, required the t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Equine Heritage Institute
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951895013

Gloria Austin

Gloria Austin lived and worked in Canada for many years. She is a graduate of the International University of Metaphysics and lives on the island of Tobago in the Caribbean, where she volunteers at Philma’s Early Childhood Center. Since her diagnosis with cancer in her early seventies, she grows her own herbs and vegetables.

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HOW TO IDENTIFY A HORSE DRAWN VEHICLE

Horse-drawn vehicles are the foundation of modern transportation. These vehicles produced many innovations used today. Other than observing a horse pull a carriage, there are proper ways to identify these vehicles and their unique characteristics.

A horse-drawn vehicle is composed of two major parts. There is the body where the driver and passengers ride. Then there is the gear, which is the combination of wheels, axle, reach and springs making a mechanical cradle for the body. The name of a carriage is generally determined by the style of its body. For example, the carriage featured here is a Stick-Seat, Coal Box Buggy. The buggy’s name comes from the shape of its rear, being curved to resemble a coal scuttle.

A carriage body consists of several components, all of which have proper names and identified as such by the carriage maker. Basic carriage appointments can include as follows:

• DASHBOARD

• TOEBOARD

• SILL

• SEAT RISER

• SEAT

• SEAT CUSHION

• FOLDING TOP

• GROOM’S SEAT

• STEP PLATE

• SKIRT

• RAIL

• REMOVEABLE LAMPS

• TOP

The gear at the above has two axles, a set of Mulholland Springs (Cray Bros., Cleveland, Ohio), a double reach, and a fifth wheel assembly. The fifth wheel is the mechanism at the center of the front axle which permits the-axle to turn. The development of the articulating front axle took three thousand years. The distance the axle can turn is called the lock.

Carriage wheels were made by Wheelwrights, a person who makes or repairs wooden wheels. They had constructed wheels with the mechanical features of a dish and camber. It was their job to fit together the three major components of a wheel: Hub, Spoke, and Felloe. The tire was applied later on to protect the felloes from road damage. The development of the wheel embodies the whole development of an animal-powered vehicle. Now taken for granted, it is one of man’s greatest inventions.

Some of the more popular style of carriages include:

-Brougham

-Victoria

-Stanhope Phaeton

-Side-bar Runabout

-Landau

-Roof-seat Break

-Rockaway

-Wagonette Break

The Axle

No matter the size, axles needed lubrication in order to allow the wheel to turn freely. If the metal boxing turns upon a metal axle, without the benefit of lubricant, the wheel would seize up, i.e. the metal parts would heat up and fuse together.

THE MAIL AXLE

One of the major types of improvements was the invention of the axle, which used oil, rather than grease as a lubricant. In 1786, John Besant patented a new wheel carriage, which included a new type of axle. It created a chamber in which oil could be stored. The wheel was held on the axle by a moon plate, a metal plate surrounding the axle, using three bolts, which pierced the hub of the wheel. It was sealed with a leather washer to keep the oil from leaking out. Since this type of axle was extensively used on Mail Coaches, it was called the Mail Axle.

The axle is the most basic component of a carriage. It holds the wheels. Experiments and patents for different kinds of axles proliferated during the time of carriage makers. The first improvements were metal plates, attached to the ends of the plain and wooden axle. Gradually, iron and then steel axles came to be the standard type of axle used in carriage construction. The steel axle consists of a steel bar, whose ends have been fashioned into a spindle. The end is turned further down and threaded to accommodate a nut. A collar is fitted behind the spindle to stop the wheel from going further. A metal boxing was fitted inside the wooden hub of the wheel, which permitted the wheel to rotate. This was a simple axle.

THE COLLINGE AXLE

Referred to as the Patent Axle, the axle invented by coach maker, John Collinge in 1792, became the most accepted axle for heavy type carriages. The boxing of the wheel fitted against a collar on the axle. The wheel was held on by a series of metal fittings, all of which had to be put on in proper sequence. The innermost piece was a brass collet, which had a flat top. This was followed by two nuts which had opposite threads. The whole was secured by a cotter pin, and an oil cap filled with oil was then screwed onto the boxing with inside threads.

Since there were many lighter varieties of carriages, attention was constantly paid to improving the axles used on them. Hundreds of patents were granted for every minuscule improvement. The Mather Thousand Mile Axle was patented in 1899, in Cleveland, Ohio. The Richards Long Distance Axle was a product of the Sheldon Axle Company (Wilkes Barre, PA), probably the largest axle maker in America. The Porter Dust-proof (1899) and the Brewer Axle (1885) were both attempts at trying to lessen the number of times one had to grease the axle. They had grooves in the axles which acted as a reservoir for additional