Stage coaches

A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon used to carry passengers and goods inside. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers. The business of running stagecoaches or the act of journeying in them was known as staging.

Originating in England, familiar images of the stagecoach are that of a Royal Mail coach passing through a turnpike gate, a Dickensian passenger coach covered in snow pulling up at a coaching inn, and a highwayman demanding a coach to "stand and deliver". The yard of ale drinking glass is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though it was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts.

The stagecoach was a four-wheeled vehicle pulled by horses or mules. The primary requirement was that it was used as a public conveyance, running on an established route and schedule. Vehicles that were used included buckboards and dead axle wagons, surplus Army ambulances and celerity (or mud) coaches. On the outside were two back seats facing one another, which the British called 'baskets'. In addition to the 'stage driver' who guided the vehicle, a 'shotgun messenger', armed with a coach gun, often rode as a guard beside him.

The stagecoach traveled at an average speed of about five miles per hour, with the total daily mileage covered being around 60 or 70 miles.

The term 'stage' originally referred to the distance between stations on a route, the coach traveling the entire route in 'stages', but through metonymy it came to apply to the coach. A fresh set of horses would be staged at the next station, so the coach could continue after a quick stop to re-hitch the new team of horses. Under this staging system, the resting, watering and feeding of the spent horses would not delay the coach. This system based on making fresh horses regularly available along a route had been in use by a number of different civilisations, going back at least as far as the ancient Romans.

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