The History of Coaches

by George Athelstane Thrupp

The perfection to which the American buggy or waggon has been carried, and every part likely to give way carefully strengthened, is marvellous. Those made by the best builders will last a long time without repair. The whole is so slender and elastic that it “gives"—to use a trade term—and recovers itself at any obstacle. The defect in English eyes of these carriages consists in the difficulty of getting in or out by reason of the height of the front wheel, and its proximity to the hind wheel—it is often necessary to partly lock round the wheel to allow of easy entrance. There is also a tremulous motion on a hard road which is not always agreeable. It is not surprising that, with the great advantages of extreme lightness, ease, and durability, and with lofty wheels, the American waggons travel with facility over very rough roads, and there is a great demand for them in our colonies. It must be remembered that the price is small, less than the price of our gigs and four-wheeled dog-carts. This cheapness is attained by making large numbers to the same pattern, by using cast-iron clips and couplings, and stays, by the use of machinery in sawing and shaping, grooving and mortising the timbers, and by the educated dexterity of the American workman always ready to adopt any improvement. An educated man will make a nimble workman, just as an educated man learns his drill from the military instructor more quickly than a clown. An educated man finds out the value of machinery and desires to use and improve it. Instead of fearing its rivalry he welcomes it; he remembers that all tools, even the saw and the hammer, are machines, and that the hand, the human hand that guides those tools is but a perfect machine obeying the guidance of the brain more quickly and in a more varied manner than any man-made machine. The American workman therefore uses machines more and more.

In England machinery for wood-shaping is used at Derby, Newcastle, Nottingham, Worcester, and other towns; and in Paris some beautiful machinery is at work in coach factories. In London, I believe, it is chiefly confined to patent-wheel factories. We use also a few steam-driven saws, some paint-grinding mills worked by hand, and drilling and punching machines. But until the use of machinery is adopted more generally in London it is probable that the trade of building carriages for export will drift more and more to the provinces and to the Continent. The saving of machinery in omnibus and cab-building would be great, because the patterns vary so little, and all other parts of one carriage could correspond with another, and counterchange when repairs were needed.

The Coachbuilders of the future will look to steam and hand machinery as their great assistant in cheapening the cost of first-rate carriages, in multiplying them for the probably increased demand, and in building carriages more speedily. It now takes from two to three months in building a brougham, of which at least five weeks are consumed simply in preparing the wood and iron work, a period which might easily be shortened by machinery.

With regard to the American waggons, they are so completely a carriage of themselves, there is so little to work upon, that we do not look for great beauty; that each of its parts should be gracefully shaped must be sufficient. The shape is conventional, affording no great opportunity for style.

The larger carriages of North America in which there is plenty of room for style and grace are, to an European eye, deficient in both. The extremely ugly straight and abrupt lines of the upper parts of the bodies, the wriggling, uncomfortable sweeps of the lower parts, the want of proportion, the scanty room for the legs of the passengers, must astonish all who have seen the carriages of other countries. American wheeled carriages seem to say, “We are made for lightness, and nothing else.” On the sledges grace, comfort, and elegance seem to have been lavished, and, to use an American term, “pleasing lines” and sweeps abound in the sleigh.

In all carriages the proportions of the different parts, to please permanently, must harmonise. If at one time the fashion of the day is for deep quarters, deep rockers, and very shallow panels, it is certain that the eye of the man of taste will sooner or later correct this, and return to the proper depths of each. If at one time the wheels are too high, a Hobson will arise and cut them lower. If the curves grow too rampant, and the scrolls and foliage too abundant, a more cultivated taste will modify all this sooner or later. It is certain that our American cousins will alter the shapes of their larger carriages, and continue to improve them. In Australia—where the admiration for American and English carriages is nearly equal—there are native carriages built which, we are told, combine the lightness and durability of American vehicles with the grace and comfort of English carriages. It may not be so yet, but it is cheering, at any rate, to hear of the attempt, and all true lovers of the craft must rejoice if it succeeds.

In America the principles of draught have been carefully considered and discussed in a magazine specially published for Coachmakers, and which magazine does the greatest credit to its able editor, Mr Ezra N. Stratton, of New York; it is beautifully illustrated, and is full of information for all branches of the craft. There is another magazine in the same city called the “Hub,” edited by Mr George Houghton, who visited Europe to see the recent display of carriages at the Exhibitions at Vienna and London in 1873.

The principles of draught are in these works first set out with reference to the sledge. We are told that, from long experience, it is found if the traces are attached to the sledge so high that the trace is horizontal or parallel with the ground, and the sledge meets with any obstacle in a rough track, the runners will bite into the obstruction so as almost to stop the team, but if the traces are fastened lower, so as to form a straight line from the horse’s collar to the hind end of the runners of the sledge, then they will lift, as it were, at the obstacle, and glide easily over it. This theory appears quite correct. It is more readily discovered in a sledge than in a carriage upon wheels, but the principle is the same in each. Again, if the runners project in advance of the sledge it follows easier than if they begin to turn upwards beneath the weight of the sledge. This in wheel carriages is the same as if the weight of the carriage were mostly on the low front wheel, instead of upon the higher hind wheels.

In the New York magazine we are asked, “Why will a team haul a load on a vehicle of four wheels easier than the same load upon two wheels?” and “Why will a team haul a load in a circle, which they cannot move straightforward?” The obvious answer is, that the same load presses on the ground in two places heavier than it does upon four places, and, secondly, that when moving in a circle the obstacles are less felt by the inner wheels than by the outer. But the magazine gives further ingenious reasons. When a load is resting upon a two-wheeled vehicle it is very seldom placed so as to balance just right. If correct for level ground, as soon as it ascends a hill, or descends, the balance is unsettled. When the wheels come to a hole, or a big stone, all the load must be raised with two wheels and only half when on four wheels. Again, an uneven road twists the horse that is between the shafts from side to side, when the load is on two wheels, more than when, on four wheels, the fore-carriage rotates on the perch-box. Again, on an incline the four-wheeler moves by its own gravity, whilst the two-wheel gives additional weight at once on the horse’s back. To the second question the magazine writer remarks that an experienced driver takes his load up hill zigzag, and not straight, and what is lost in time is gained in power. On the question of the height of the splinter-bar and whipple-trees, he gives his experience of twenty years that they should be, as a rule, a foot below the point of traction at the horse’s collar. He explains the advantage of splinters (like our leading-bars) for all the horses of a team, and not only the leaders, to be this—that if one horse is lazy, then the others draw their bars forward, and, consequently, his bar going back brings his traces tight again.

With reference to the method of attaching the horses close to their work in England, and some distance from their work on the Continent, I wish to have it understood that I do not consider the Continental custom absolutely superior to the English custom, but I consider we might adopt a middle course with great advantage to the horses and passengers. It is certain that on the Continent the horses have, in many instances, their traces too long, as it is that we have them often too short.