Stagecoach

A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, diligence) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are drawn by six horses.

This article is about the horse-drawn carriage used by long-distance passenger transport operators. For other uses, see Stagecoach (disambiguation).
Stagecoach
Preserved Concord stagecoach in Wells Fargo livery
Postcoach or diligence in Switzerland
Behind time, anonymous engraving of a stagecoach in England

Commonly used before steam-powered rail transport was available, a stagecoach made long scheduled trips using stage stations or posts where the stagecoach's horses would be replaced by fresh horses. The business of running stagecoaches or the act of journeying in them was known as staging.

Some 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, a highwayman demanding a coach to "stand and deliver" and a Wells Fargo stagecoach arriving at or leaving an American frontier town. The yard of ale drinking glass is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though it was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts.

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