Pointless Trivia question

[rodent279]

Railway vehicle nomenclature-are they coaches, or carriages? Wagons or trucks? Goods trains, or freight trains?

 

Trivial maybe, but what, if any, is the difference?

 

(I was going to add train station or railway station, but let's not go there.....)

Edited October 17, 2021 by rodent279

[Ian Smeeton]

Coaches on the big railway unless they are Pullman Cars or sleeping cars.

Cars on LU

 

Wagons unless they are chauldron waggons, the only trucks are on the road, or bogies in the US

 

Goods and freight, there was an official GWR change, but you would have to ask @Stationmaster, or possibly @Station Master about that.

 

As you say Railway/Train station, I am definitely NOT going there!!

 

Regards

 

Ian

[kevinlms]

26 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

(I was going to add train station or railway station, but let's not go there.....)

As long as they are located near the railway line!

[Dagworth]

16 minutes ago, Ian Smeeton said:

Coaches on the big railway unless they are Pullman Cars or sleeping cars.

Or parts of a multiple unit? 
 

Andi

[rodent279]

2 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

As long as they are located near the railway line!

As opposed to the *"!# line... 

[rodent279]

What got me asking this piffling trivia question was sitting on a seat in a coach/car/carriage* of a certain well known preserved railway, listening to the tuneful note of a certain green goddess, looking at a sign on the opposite platform that said "Carriage 2". I presume it is there to aid normals/customers/passengers* in finding the correct vehicle.

ISTR similar signage on the Big Railway, saying 4 car, or 4 coach, and wondered who/what/where/why decided a change was necessary.

 

* Delete as appropriate.

Edited October 17, 2021 by rodent279

[eastwestdivide]

The answer to all of those is “yes”. 

[D9020 Nimbus]

I think "goods" referred to general goods, as opposed to say, "mineral" trains. "Freight" is of US origin, and in the UK I think it includes both goods and mineral trains. ButnI could be wrong…

[Kris]

3 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

I think "goods" referred to general goods, as opposed to say, "mineral" trains. "Freight" is of US origin, and in the UK I think it includes both goods and mineral trains. ButnI could be wrong…

Older working timetables distinguish between Mineral trains and Freight trains, labelling each as such.

[Wickham Green too]

............ and, of course there were 'luggage trains' in earlier times  -  nothing to do with P.L.A. facilities.

[RichardT]

The differences may be the increasing influence of trans-Atlantic styles on English as spoken this side of the pond. 
 

Wagons (originally waggons) and carriages for passengers derived by direct analogy from their horse-drawn road forebears. Wagons being divided into open and covered merchandise plus open mineral wagons.
 

Don’t know when “truck” came in for wagon but as in railway usage it’s the US term for what we call a “bogie” I suspect it’s a transfer from road usage - when people in GB started saying “trucks” for what had originally been known as lorries (“lurries” or “rullies” for the horse-drawn equivalents.)

 

Richard T

 

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by RichardT
Spelling

[RichardT]

Shortening carriage to “car” is definitely a US import - dining/restaurant and sleeping cars all appearing in the US first.  The major US investors behind the Underground Electric Railways of London meant that the underground adopted “car” and “truck” as their terminology.  (Also why they head-hunted George Gibb & his assistant Frank Pick from York, because the NER was a pioneer in adopting US management techniques.).

Presumably being told constantly to “pass right down the car” meant that Londoners quickly started using “car” for all suburban railway carriages!

 

”Coach” - hmm?

 

Richard T

[Jeremy Cumberland]

36 minutes ago, RichardT said:

The major US investors behind the Underground Electric Railways of London meant that the underground adopted “car” and “truck” as their terminology.

This does not really account for the Isle of Man, though. I imagine that Milnes (who made the cars)  may have copied both the technology and the terminology from America, but this is just a guess.

 

It could have been worse. If they had copied from Germany we may have been talking about and Straßenbahnwagens and Triebdrehgestells.

[John M Upton]

Here in third rail EMU land, a EMU is officially a Unit, each part of it is a carriage but where they stop on the platform is marked by a Car Stop (possible using Car instead of Carriage as the latter may have been too long to fit on the little square sign I suspect) yet on board automated announcements refer to a whole train  as being made up of # coaches or coach number # of # etc.

 

Just to add to the chaos, a goods vehicle would never have been referred to as a wagon as that could have been confused with the Wagon-Lits which were the continental sleeper cars, or is it coaches?  Err.....

[billbedford]

7 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

I think "goods" referred to general goods, as opposed to say, "mineral" trains. "Freight" is of US origin, and in the UK I think it includes both goods and mineral trains. ButnI could be wrong…

 

'Freight' was the charge for the carriage of goods. 

[billbedford]

7 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Railway vehicle nomenclature-are they coaches, or carriages? Wagons or trucks? Goods trains, or freight trains?

 

Originally, ie before railways, wagons were steerable, trucks had both axles fixed. Also brakes were vans used to 'break-in' horses to work with carriages. 

[melmerby]

44 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

Originally, ie before railways, wagons were steerable, trucks had both axles fixed. Also brakes were vans used to 'break-in' horses to work with carriages. 

Hence some brake vans being break vans.

 

Also Coach is the US term for the basic passenger car class. (Like standard class in the UK.)

Car is the US term for railway vehicles, also used in the UK from the early 1900s

Freight is the US term for non passenger traffic, imported into the UK by the NER in the early 1900s.

The GWR 1936 general appendix, in the index it uses the term freight for the trains and goods for what they carried , however the term goods train still crops up in the text!

Minerals are only mentioned once, when coupling to a "freight" train

Edited October 17, 2021 by melmerby

[kevinlms]

9 hours ago, rodent279 said:

As opposed to the *"!# line... 

As opposed to the view that sometimes questions get asked as to ' why the station is so far from town'. 'To be next to the railway line'.

[Michael Hodgson]

I heard that an American railway boss referred to passengers as "self-loading cargo".

 

Personally I think they should be classed as perishables, since you have to get them to destination promptly because they go off very quickly if the train is delayed.

[sulzer27jd]

8 hours ago, RichardT said:

Don’t know when “truck” came in for wagon but as in railway usage it’s the US term for what we call a “bogie” I suspect it’s a transfer from road usage - when people in GB started saying “trucks” for what had originally been known as lorries (“lurries” or “rullies” for the horse-drawn equivalents.)

 

It was used to describe "Cattle and Sheep Trucks" - Caledonian Railway BoT returns 1877. There were also Carriage Trucks (both open and covered, for the conveyance of horse drawn carriages), Scenery Trucks and Fish Trucks. Covered Milk, Fish and Fruit vehicles were called Vans.

 

The BoT return referred to Carriages, these being collectively known by the Caledonian as Coaching Plant Stock. Luggage Vans were identified separately. There were details of rolling stock for trains of Merchandise and Minerals, made up of wagons; both Goods and Covered Goods, trucks and vans.

[Engineer]

Adding to the OP theme of 'pointless trivia' ...

 

Although the Underground label of 'car' is near universal, as already mentioned, the colloquial usage of 'bogie' and 'truck' is more interchangeable.   Both words show up in drawing titles and documents, and it's hard to say if there was a clear pattern in the past.  In the old Acton Works, there was a Truck Shop, but also there was an outdoor area between workshop buildings known as the 'Bogie Park' where bogies and/or trucks were stored.

Formal and documented distinctions of 'car' and 'coach' seem relatively robust on the Metropolitan Railway with a small minority of exceptions, and the use of 'vehicle' is an important and valuable distinction in working timetables.   From the diagram book, 'Car' = saloon layout, electric stock with side sliding doors [early vehicles had gates, replaced by sliding doors quite early].  There were two Pullman cars and the Rothschild Saloon which was in the 'coach' family - a one-off special, a bogie vehicle with hinged doors that substituted for a Pullman at times and had been made from two 6-wheel saloons.  

'Coach' applied generally to ‘Compartment Stock’ [a term also used in the diagram book], all the way from rigid 8-wheel vehicles, through loco-hauled vehicles to the electric stock of its latter years.  Two single motor coaches used mainly on shuttle services had been created from damaged saloon motor cars and given coach bodies of 'Main Line Stock' style as pilots for the design of that vehicle family.  

 

Type identification within Coach stock was moderately consistent in correspondence and drawings.  'Jubilee' for the 4-wheel vehicles of the 1880s-1890s [one preserved].  'Bogie Stock' was the family of the Metropolitan's first passenger vehicles with bogies [five survivors] that operated in various steam/loco-hauled and electric stock forms.  Although popular naming calls these 'Ashbury', there seems to be only one early use of this name in 'The Engineer' in the 1890s that recorded the first build by that Firm, and no other Metropolitan or early LT documents use the 'Ashbury' label.  The family of loco-hauled coaches formally recorded as 'Main Line Stock' was also referred to as 'Dreadnought' both colloquially and in some internal documents.  In later times, further references developed to 'Steam Stock', noticeably after some former loco-hauled coaches were incorporated in electric stock trains.  

The label 'vehicle' was used carefully in Metropolitan Working timetables to identify detail of planned stock utilisation.  Electric trains of saloon stock were identified as '3-car', '4-car', '6-car', '7-car'.  Electric compartment stock was identified as '3-coach' '4-coach, '6-coach', '7-coach', '8-coach'.   Electric trains with a mix of types were identified as '-vehicle'.  Compartment [or sometimes saloon] motors with compartment-style coaches, designated as W or Y Stock, were identified as '8-vehicle electric train' or 9-vehicle electric train' respectively in the timetables.  Compartment-style motor coaches running with saloon stock trailer cars were identified as '7-vehicle train'.  

 

[rodent279]

Keep it coming folks, I'm loving this, there is a mine of information coming out. What is life, without the piffling trivialities? :-)

 

[Nearholmer]

Usage has changed over time:

 

Engine > locomotive/loco (which was once only formal language, and is itself a contraction of the full and proper term ‘locomotive engine’)

 

Truck > wagon

 

If you want to see ‘period’ accepted language, read old HMRI accident reports. Clearly, they were fairly formal, but you will still find ‘engine’ and ‘truck’ used.

 

Coach/carriage must have carried over from horse drawn road vehicles, and presumably ‘car’ is a contraction, found anywhere in U.K. parlance where US influence was heavy - Pullman clearly so; multiple unit control was invented by Sprague, an American; The Underground was US owned from c1900.

 

Railway station > Train station ……. A change still in progress.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Railway station > Train station ……. A change still in progress.

 

I walked to Liverpool Lime Street on Friday where there is a lot of roadworks and redevelopment currently going on.

 

Two signs virtually next to each other with direction arrows. Obviously not railway related, either Highways or local council.

 

RAILWAY STATION

BUS STATION

 

So they are still using the correct terms.

 

 

 

Jason

[Engineer]

Just a few years ago I was giving a careers talk [as a volunteer] to a primary year 6 [or thereabouts] class.  Going with the flow of dialogue I held up an A3 size picture as an example of a steam train of the past.  One student challenged quite precociously and insistently that the picture showed a 'steam engine', not a steam train - not quite an error as there was an H Class 4-4-4T at the front.  Rapidly, it passed through my mind to explore the distinction of locomotive engine and stationary engine.  However, I suggested that the class should notice also the six coaches that were an important part of the train for all the people travelling. 
  
Deviating from topic momentarily, by contrast at other primary schools I was asked how couplings [bar, auto, etc.] worked and, by a female student, how do railway wheels follow the track?  Pretty sure these weren't planted questions.  In the latter instance we used the rest of question time for a quick demo of 'guidance' with a couple of paper cups.