Carriage

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 (in the 19th century) 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.

Construction
Body
Carriages may be enclosed or open, depending on the type. The top cover for the body of a carriage, called the head or hood, is often flexible and designed to be folded back when desired. Such a folding top is called a bellows top or calash. A hoopstick forms a light framing member for this kind of hood. The top, roof or second-story compartment of a closed carriage, especially a diligence, was called an imperial. A closed carriage may have side windows called quarter lights (British) as well as windows in the doors, hence a "glass coach". On the forepart of an open carriage, a screen of wood or leather called a dashboard intercepts water, mud or snow thrown up by the heels of the horses. The dashboard or carriage top sometimes has a projecting sidepiece called a wing (British). A foot iron or footplate may serve as a carriage step.

A carriage driver sits on a box or perch, usually elevated and small. When at the front it is known as a dickey box, a term also used for a seat at the back for servants. A footman might use a small platform at the rear called a footboard or a seat called a rumble behind the body. Some carriages have a moveable seat called a jump seat. Some seats had an attached backrest called a lazyback.

The shafts of a carriage were called limbers in English dialect. Lancewood, a tough elastic wood of various trees, was often used especially for carriage shafts. A holdback, consisting of an iron catch on the shaft with a looped strap, enables a horse to back or hold back the vehicle. The end of the tongue of a carriage is suspended from the collars of the harness by a bar called the yoke. At the end of a trace, a loop called a cockeye attaches to the carriage.

In some carriage types the body is suspended from several leather straps called braces or thoroughbraces, attached to or serving as springs.

Undergear
Beneath the carriage body is the undergear or undercarriage (or simply carriage), consisting of the running gear and chassis. The wheels and axles, in distinction from the body, are the running gear. The wheels revolve upon bearings or a spindle at the ends of a bar or beam called an axle or axletree. Most carriages have either one or two axles. On a four-wheeled vehicle, the forward part of the running gear, or forecarriage, is arranged to permit the front axle to turn independently of the fixed rear axle. In some carriages a 'dropped axle', bent twice at a right angle near the ends, allows a low body with large wheels. A guard called a dirtboard keeps dirt from the axle arm.

Several structural members form parts of the chassis supporting the carriage body. The fore axletree and the splinter bar above it (supporting the springs) are united by a piece of wood or metal called a futchel, which forms a socket for the pole that extends from the front axle. For strength and support, a rod called the backstay may extend from either end of the rear axle to the reach, the pole or rod joining the hind axle to the forward bolster above the front axle.

A skid called a drag, dragshoe, shoe or skidpan retards the motion of the wheels. A London patent of 1841 describes one such apparatus: An iron-shod beam, slightly longer than the radius of the wheel, is hinged under the axle so that when it is released to strike the ground the forward momentum of the vehicle wedges it against the axle. The original feature of this modification was that, instead of the usual practice of having to stop the carriage to retract the beam and so lose useful momentum, the chain holding it in place is released (from the driver's position) so that it is allowed to rotate further in its backwards direction, releasing the axle. A system of "pendant-levers" and straps then allows the beam to return to its first position and be ready for further use.

A catch or block called a trigger may be used to hold a wheel on a declivity.

A horizontal wheel or segment of a wheel called a fifth wheel sometimes forms an extended support to prevent the carriage from tipping; it consists of two parts rotating on each other about the kingbolt above the fore axle and beneath the body. A block of wood called a headblock might be placed between the fifth wheel and the forward spring.

Fittings
Many of these fittings were carried over to horseless carriages and evolved into the modern elements of automobiles. During the Brass Era they were often the same parts on either type of carriage (i.e., horse-drawn or horseless).

    Upholstery (trimming): traditionally similar to the upholstery of furniture; evolved into car interior ulholstery such as car seats and door trim panels
    Carriage lamps: typically oil lamps for centuries, although carbide lamps and battery-powered electric lamps were also used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; evolved into car headlamps
    Trunk: a luggage trunk serving the same purpose as, and which gave its name to, later car trunks
    Toolbox: a small box with enough hand tools to make simple repairs on the roadside
    Blankets: in winter, blankets for the driver and passengers and often horse blankets as well
    Running board: a step to assist in climbing onto the carriage and also sometimes a place for standing passengers
    Shovel: useful for mud and snow in the roadway, to free the carriage from being stuck; was especially important in the era when most roads were dirt roads, often with deep ruts
    Buggy whip or coachwhip: whips for the horses. For obvious reasons, this is one of the components of carriage equipment that did not carry over from horse-drawn carriages to horseless carriages, and that fact has made such whips one of the prototypical or stereotypical examples of products whose manufacture is subject to disruptive innovation.

Types
Pony trap or horse trap
A trap, pony trap or horse trap is a light, often sporty, two-wheeled or sometimes four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage, accommodating usually two to four persons in various seating arrangements, such as face-to-face or back-to-back.

Tonga/tanga (Indian horse carriage)
A tanga (Hindi: टाँगा, Urdu: ٹانگہ, Bengali: টাঙ্গা) or Tonga is a light horse-drawn carriage used for transportation in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Tangas are a popular mode of transportation because they are fun to ride in, and are usually cheaper to hire than a taxi or rickshaw. However, in many cities, tangas are not allowed to use highways because of their slow pace. In Pakistan, tangas are mainly found in the older parts of cities and towns, and are becoming less popular for utilitarian travel and more popular for pleasure. Tangas have become a traditional feature of weddings and other social functions in Pakistan, as well as in other nations. They are usually pulled by two horses, though some require only one. Others are designed for farm work. The room under the seats is sometimes used by the coachman (locally called "coach-waan") to keep his horse's food and sometimes to keep luggage if required.

Tangas are used for economic activity, mainly to carry heavy goods within the city limits.

Tangas were the most common means of transport in urban India and Pakistan until the early 1980s. Although autorickshaws have overtaken them in popularity, tangas are still common today in many cities and villages.

Volante
A volante is a two-wheeled, one- or two-passenger Spanish carriage formerly much used in Cuba. The axle was behind an open, hooded body. The carriage was driven by a rider on the horse.

Araba
An araba (from Arabic: عربة, araba or Turkish: araba) (also arba or aroba) is a carriage (such as a cabriolet or coach), wagon or cart drawn by horses or oxen, used in Turkey and neighboring Middle Eastern countries. It is usually heavy and without springs, and often covered.

Words related to carriages
The names of many of these have now passed into obscurity but some have been adopted to describe automotive car body styles: coupé, victoria, brougham, landau and landaulet, cabriolet (giving us our cab), phaeton, and limousine – all these once denoted particular types of carriages.

en.wikipedia.org