Mike Riley Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Slightly OT but in this country we use the word "carriageway" wrt roads. As a highway engineer I try to avoid using this word when I cross the Atlantic as it leaves the Americans completely mystified. They think it is some sort of road for horse-drawn carriages. Likewise a "lorry" is unknown outside these shores. Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 'Coach' and 'carriage' are interchangeable and this is mirrored on the numerous books on the subject. When Michael Harris's Gresley coaches was updated it came out as LNER Carriages... Same stuff basically...different wrapper. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talltim Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 carriagemann knows what he is talking about Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 While the two terms are largely interchangeable, I think in the strictest sense "coach" is a subset of "carriage"; i.e. all coaches are carriages, but not all carriages are coaches... ...but when is a "wagon" a "waggon"? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KCR Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 ...but when is a "wagon" a "waggon"? why is it a horse box, but a cattle wagon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talltim Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 why is it a horse box, but a cattle wagon. There is a hierarchy of domesticated animals. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 why is it a horse box, but a cattle wagon. Because the vehicle for the horses was a specially constructed vehicle with stalls or 'boxes' from quite an early date, whereas the cattle were originally simply shov(ell)ed into an open wagon. (It didn't change much subsequently, just a roof on top.) At the time the railway had its beginnings, horses in plural were referred to as 'cattle'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Reorte Posted March 23, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 23, 2015 Nothing to add on coach / carriage but AIUI the Midland Railway (and maybe some others) referred to the steam-driven things providing the power as "engines". "Locomotive" (short for "locomotive engine(s)"?) makes more sense to me though for the reasons already mentioned. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 There is a hierarchy of domesticated animals. Yes, I believe some are more equal than others... Because the vehicle for the horses was a specially constructed vehicle with stalls or 'boxes' from quite an early date, whereas the cattle were originally simply shov(ell)ed into an open wagon. (It didn't change much subsequently, just a roof on top.) At the time the railway had its beginnings, horses in plural were referred to as 'cattle'. There was I thinking that the "gg" in "waggon" had something to do with horses. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamTom Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 While the two terms are largely interchangeable, I think in the strictest sense "coach" is a subset of "carriage"; i.e. all coaches are carriages, but not all carriages are coaches... ...but when is a "wagon" a "waggon"? When it's American, I thought, or increasingly archaic over here. On coach versus carriage, I'm with Gwiwer, A carriage was a conveyance for one or two people, perhaps as many as four, and not available for the use of others. A coach was run as a public service upon which seats could be booked inside or casual travel was possible outside (literally). with the reminder that a taximeter cabriolet is a Hackney carriage. Edit: The other half suggests (only) that originally the distinction was in the distance the conveyance was expected to journey. Was a car (US word) originally a passenger vehicle on rails? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bike2steam Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Does anyone else remember those big diamond-shaped cast iron signs which used to adorn some bridges referring to the weight of 'road locomotives'? Oh, road locomotives, they mean those single cylinder locomotives - ha, ha, ha, ( see post # 8 ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penlan Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 So much easier to just refer to them all, as people do nowadays, as trains Or consists.. ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Storey Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Likewise a "lorry" is unknown outside these shores. Mike True, and bizarrely was a British railway word in the 19thC for a long, low wagon (from a verb still in use then, lurry, to pull). When it fell out of use and became used solely for road vehicles I do not know. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Riley Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 True, and bizarrely was a British railway word in the 19thC for a long, low wagon (from a verb still in use then, lurry, to pull). When it fell out of use and became used solely for road vehicles I do not know. The GWR had some long low wagons called Loriots. Is that coincidence? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
billbedford Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Yep, loriot is he French name for the birds we call orioles. This would fit with the GWR giving bird names to other special wagons, e.g. parrots, macaws etc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KCR Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Reptilian wagons also http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrcrocodile I'd love to know what the Weltrol bit of the name refers to? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talltim Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 The Wel bit is from well, the dipped bit and I believe the Trol is from Trolley. There are also Flatrols, without the well. Where does the Rec in Rectank come from? Is the Mac in Lowmac Machinery? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Where does the Rec in Rectank come from? The rectangular shape? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLD Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 Having worked for 40 years in the State transport companies here in Dublin my first experience as an apprentice was to work on double decker buses but which were referred in the trade as cars and that included instructions to passengers by conductors such as to "move on up the car please"Almost certainly a hangover from tramway days.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 When is a coach a carriage? Never, when it refers to someone who instructs or trains a sports team. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridee Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 London underground also call their carriages cars but still stable them in carriage sidings !!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 The nautical definition of coach was hard to find, almost a Google fail. Merriam-Webster (sadly I have lost access to the Online OED) defines it as: "a cabin on the afterpart of the quarterdeck of a man-of-war usually occupied by the captain" The term seems to date from the early 17th century when a raised roof was placed (between gangways) over a cabin, with windows and carved ornamentation forward of the break in the quarterdeck, and located over the steerage, used for the Captain's dining room - the protrusion having the appearance of a coach. Since this feature eliminated the possibility of locating guns on that section of the quarterdeck, it was apparently abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRman Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 London underground also call their carriages cars but still stable them in carriage sidings !!! True. London Transport has a few terms that are carry-overs from the American origins of the system (Yerkes). As an example, their cars run on trucks, rather than bogies. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRman Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 ...I can see these things happening in meetings at early preservation efforts as well... 'First up, we should note the that one board member has tendered his resignation to the board due to the losing his marmbles and running riot with a tenderising hammer, this was in no way related to the current financial difficulties we're suffering paying for the tender load of coal a day to run our trains, compounded by having purchased a scrap LSWR T9 locomotive with no watercart. The attendees who have not tendered resignation shall now move on to discuss the tender of the contract to move the tender of the locomotive we are tendering an offer on from the scrap yard to the land our representitive was tendering an offer on the purchase of, these things tending to be somewhat long winded due to tender relations with the local community following the noise we made restoring the locomotive we should be able to have our tender restored and tender our locomotive for hire to other preservation efforts along with a trained member of staff acting as engine tender meaning we can tender for other resteration work from preserved railways by next year.' Don't move, KCR. There's a small padded van heading your way with some very nice men in white coats, with a straitjacket specially marked with your name! They have some marvelous padded accommodation reserved just for you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted March 24, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 24, 2015 True. London Transport has a few terms that are carry-overs from the American origins of the system (Yerkes). As an example, their cars run on trucks, rather than bogies. Lorry = UK usage almost exclusively meaning a (usually larger) vehicle intended for transporting goods. Truck = US usage and re-imported to London by Charles Tyson Yerkes resulting in LUL to this day mounting their cars on trucks. More widely used around the world for a (usually larger) vehicle intended for transporting goods. Trucker (US) / Truckie (Aus) = one who drives the aforementioned beasts. But never a Lurrer or Lurrie in the UK, often a Lorry Driver otherwise simply the object of one's frustration Lorries are used for trucking goods as are trucks. Trucks are never said to lorry (or lurry, see post above) goods. It also occurs to me that tramcars run on trucks almost where ever one is in the World though in the US the vehicles are sometimes streetcars instead. Car itself is an abbreviation of automobile carriage - literally a transportation vehicle which runs by itself. The term was coined to distinguish them from animal-drawn carriages (and coaches) and has passed into the English language as "car" in most nations but commonly "auto" in the US. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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