Use of term 'carriage' for a compartment

[JGurney]

I have only been familiar with 'carriage' in the sense of a railway vehicle being used as an alternative term for coach. However I have recently noticed the term being used apparently to mean a compartment in two pieces of older fiction, one of them a 1923 Agatha Christie short story 'Mystery of the Plymouth Express' and the other the 1961 children's book 'Just like Jennings'.
Was 'carriage' formerly used to mean a train compartment rather than a coach?

 

[Gloster]

No. Carriage always meant the whole vehicle, but some authors are sloppy about their use of technical terms, not just railway ones. If it ain’t a crucial part of the plot, and sometimes if it is, their research is often limited or non-existent. Christie in particular tended to use a very simple style and lack of research, other than exotic poisons and exotic locations.

 

[randyrippley]

I suppose something like that could just about be used where you've got a couple of bodies off an old 4-wheeler grafted onto a newer bogie underframe, but I wouldn't have thought either of the cited authors would even be aware of such happenings

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Was 'carriage' formerly used to mean a train compartment rather than a coach?

As a supplementary question, when did individual compartments (with or without corridors) cease to be a thing on the GB railway? Is everything open plan now?

 

[hexagon789]

As a supplementary question, when did individual compartments (with or without corridors) cease to be a thing on the GB railway? Is everything open plan now?

Other than sleeping cars, I think the Class 442s (pre-GatEx refurbishment) and the two 3CIGs EMUs used on the Lymington Pier Branch until 2010 would the last or among the last.

 

[superalbs]

Somewhere in the Indian subcontinent I believe the reverse is true. Carriages are known as compartments.

I think it was Sri Lanka.

 

[The exile]

Other than sleeping cars, I think the Class 442s (pre-GatEx refurbishment) and the two 3CIGs EMUs used on the Lymington Pier Branch until 2010 would the last or among the last.

(Part) Non corridor suburban stock survived on the SE division until sometime in the 90s.

 

[12C]

As a supplementary question, when did individual compartments (with or without corridors) cease to be a thing on the GB railway? Is everything open plan now?

In 2015 Northern was briefly using a DRS Mk2d BFK on the Cumbrian Coast loco hauled services. Quite a novelty at the time and I'm guessing that was the last time side corridor compartment stock was used, apart from the sleeper and charter trains.

 

[snowball]

From Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan (1882)

Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich –
Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage –

I suspect that "carriage" was widely used to mean compartment - maybe not by railway professionals, according to the posts above.

A bathing machine was a one-person shed on wheels to enable people on a beach to change into swimwear out of sight of others.

 

[Rescars]

From Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan (1882)



I suspect that "carriage" was widely used to mean compartment - maybe not by railway professionals, according to the posts above.

A bathing machine was a one-person shed on wheels to enable people on a beach to change into swimwear out of sight of others.

I doubt there is much difference between the overall length of a bathing machine and the whole of a short four-wheeled carriage! The Talyllyn has some nice examples. When it comes to passenger comfort, G&S's Mikado went even further of course, suggesting that those who scribble on carriage windows should be compelled to travel "on a buffer in parliamentary trains"!

Going back to the OP, I'd put this down to a general casualness over terminology. Consider how often we hear trains described as engines. Just to add to possible reasons for the conflation, back in the mid Victorian period not all compartments were fully separated. In some stock, the cross walls behind the seats only extended part way towards the ceiling, leaving a gap at the top.

Following the murder of Thomas Briggs on the NLR in 1864, some companies cut "Mueller's Lights" into the walls between closed compartments so it became possible to see what was going on further down the carriage (or coach!). AIUI, the public response following this murder also resulted in the development of side corridors and obligations about installing communication cords.

 

[30907]

I have only been familiar with 'carriage' in the sense of a railway vehicle being used as an alternative term for coach. However I have recently noticed the term being used apparently to mean a compartment in two pieces of older fiction, one of them a 1923 Agatha Christie short story 'Mystery of the Plymouth Express' and the other the 1961 children's book 'Just like Jennings'.
Was 'carriage' formerly used to mean a train compartment rather than a coach?

I no longer have said book but I remember there being more than one railway-related error in the mishap-full journey to school.

 

[sh24]

Somewhere in the Indian subcontinent I believe the reverse is true. Carriages are known as compartments.

I think it was Sri Lanka.

As confusing as the Indian use of bogie instead carriage.

 

[JGurney]

I no longer have said book but I remember there being more than one railway-related error in the mishap-full journey to school.

There were, but the others were not of a linguistic nature.
There might be one where the train, which is from Victoria to the South Coast, is described as being loco-hauled by an "electric engine". I noticed that when first reading the book aged about 11, as I knew that by then, the mid-70's, all such services were EMUs, but I recall thinking that perhaps they had used locos 15 years earlier. I still don't know today whether SR ran any loco-hauled services into Sussex in 1961.

The next one arises when some coaches are detached at an intermediate station, and are then shunted into sidings without a staff member checking that there were no passengers still on board. This leads to two boys finding themselves marooned in the sidings. I recall being surprised by this on first reading it, as it seemed highly implausible. While I had not been around in 1961, it seemed to me even as an 11-year-old that surely someone would check coaches were empty before shunting them into sidings.
As the author, Anthony Buckeridge, generally stuck to realistic events in his fiction, rather than featuring impossibilities, this struck me as different from the rest of his work.

The last, and really unbelievable, was that when the two boys marooned in the coaches in the sidings alerted the crew of a shunting engine to their presence, the crew carried the two boys in the cab back to the nearest station and then arranged for them to complete their journey in the brake-van of a freight train going that way.

That seemed wholly unbelievable to me as an 11-year-old. It seemed to me that the boys would either be escorted out to the road and left to walk, or perhaps driven back to the station by road, not conveyed in a shunter's cab, and when they did get to the nearest station they would be put on the next passenger train, not given a ride on a freight train. I recall being quite puzzled that the normally realistic Buckeridge should include such events. However, having read here about shunter crews on lines like the Wenford branch giving enthusiasts cab rides as late as the 1980's, perhaps I was wrong and such a thing could have happened in 1961.

 

[superalbs]

As confusing as the Indian use of bogie instead carriage.

Yes! And there's also something similar in Thailand.

 

[30907]

There were, but the others were not of a linguistic nature.
There might be one where the train, which is from Victoria to the South Coast, is described as being loco-hauled by an "electric engine". I noticed that when first reading the book aged about 11, as I knew that by then, the mid-70's, all such services were EMUs, but I recall thinking that perhaps they had used locos 15 years earlier. I still don't know today whether SR ran any loco-hauled services into Sussex in 1961.

The next one arises when some coaches are detached at an intermediate station, and are then shunted into sidings without a staff member checking that there were no passengers still on board. This leads to two boys finding themselves marooned in the sidings. I recall being surprised by this on first reading it, as it seemed highly implausible. While I had not been around in 1961, it seemed to me even as an 11-year-old that surely someone would check coaches were empty before shunting them into sidings.
As the author, Anthony Buckeridge, generally stuck to realistic events in his fiction, rather than featuring impossibilities, this struck me as different from the rest of his work.

The last, and really unbelievable, was that when the two boys marooned in the coaches in the sidings alerted the crew of a shunting engine to their presence, the crew carried the two boys in the cab back to the nearest station and then arranged for them to complete their journey in the brake-van of a freight train going that way.

I found the opening of the book on Amazon - I notice Darbishire refers (pedantically and correctly) to unit-spotting, which I had forgotten (or maybe the text has been edited?!).
The only L/H electric (or diesel-electric) on the Central Division around then would have been the Newhaven Boat Train

 

[Rescars]

The next one arises when some coaches are detached at an intermediate station, and are then shunted into sidings without a staff member checking that there were no passengers still on board. This leads to two boys finding themselves marooned in the sidings. I recall being surprised by this on first reading it, as it seemed highly implausible. While I had not been around in 1961, it seemed to me even as an 11-year-old that surely someone would check coaches were empty before shunting them into sidings.

Implausible, but perhaps not impossible! I can't comment about 1961, but in the late 1970's I had a colleague who, following a liquid lunch, ended up being roused by the carriage cleaners at Edge Hill. Starting from Birmingham, he had slept through both a planned change at Crewe and the end of the run at Lime Street!

 

[JGurney]

I found the opening of the book on Amazon - I notice Darbishire refers (pedantically and correctly) to unit-spotting, which I had forgotten (or maybe the text has been edited?!).
The only L/H electric (or diesel-electric) on the Central Division around then would have been the Newhaven Boat Train

Faintly plausible, in that the boys destination was the fictional town of Dunhambury, roughly based on Lewes. However, did the boat train stop at Lewes in mid- to late-afternoon, and would it have had some coaches detached somewhere before Lewes, such as Haywards Heath?
Possibly the reason Buckeridge made it a loco-hauled service was so that detaching two carriages from the train, rather than separating two EMU's, could feature. Separating two EMU's would not work in the story unless there was a through corridor connection between them, which I don't believe featured on any Southern EMU in service in 1961. (The two boys who get marooned in the detached carriages had gone there due to walking down the corridor while the train was in motion, after being ordered to leave their original compartment and go well away from it by a teacher annoyed at their behaviour).

 

[6Gman]

The last, and really unbelievable, was that when the two boys marooned in the coaches in the sidings alerted the crew of a shunting engine to their presence, the crew carried the two boys in the cab back to the nearest station and then arranged for them to complete their journey in the brake-van of a freight train going that way.

That seemed wholly unbelievable to me as an 11-year-old. It seemed to me that the boys would either be escorted out to the road and left to walk, or perhaps driven back to the station by road, not conveyed in a shunter's cab, and when they did get to the nearest station they would be put on the next passenger train, not given a ride on a freight train. I recall being quite puzzled that the normally realistic Buckeridge should include such events. However, having read here about shunter crews on lines like the Wenford branch giving enthusiasts cab rides as late as the 1980's, perhaps I was wrong and such a thing could have happened in 1961.

In around 1964 we somehow (family of 4) found ourselves marooned at Georgemas Junction. We proceeded to Thurso (2 parents, boys of 10 and 7) in a goods brake hauled by a Class 26. It may have helped that dad was a passed fireman (though a long, long way from Georgemas Junction!).

 

[D7666]

I am not so sure the words carriage and compartment are as disconnected as some are stating.

If you go back 200 years to the very early days of enclosed passenger vehicles e.g. Liverpool & Manchester Railway those 4 w yellow vehicles like the NRM example are really 3 horse drawn carriage bodies fixed back to back on an underframe to form 3 compartments. Something like "reserve a carriage" could equally have meant a horse drawn carriage or one section of such a rail vehicle. It would not surprise me if some nuance of etymology does allow a compartment to be called a carriage even if this term has long fallen out of use within the rail industry.

 

[Gloster]

In the early days of railways a carriage could beasily have only one compartment. However, I think that after a few years, as the length of the vehicles grew and they became divided internally, the word compartment came into use and the the difference was understood both by railwaymen and the general public. By 1923 and 1961 I doubt that many did not understand the difference, but authors churning out books can easily make errors on minor (and sometimes major) details.

I could add that the painstaking, detailed research into just about every aspect of the story is much more common than it was...and they still get it wrong. In those days the reader would just skim over an error, whereas now they will hit X and start a Facebook pile-on.

 

[D7666]

There were, but the others were not of a linguistic nature.
There might be one where the train, which is from Victoria to the South Coast, is described as being loco-hauled by an "electric engine". I noticed that when first reading the book aged about 11, as I knew that by then, the mid-70's, all such services were EMUs,

One could consider the motor coaches of 6Pan/6Pul units almost as locomotives - they were massive things weighing not far of 60 ton with underframes that looked like Forth Bridge spare parts.

It is also not uncommon in US terminology to refer to lead motor coaches in unit formation as a locomotive.

To any non anorak wearing outside this interest, the precise "compartmentalisation" of vehicle types is unknown irrelevant and of no interest.

Pretty sure one Arthur Conan Doyle has one S.Holmes refering to carriages in one book where it it just meant one seated area some are insisting is and can only ever be called a compartment.

The next one arises when some coaches are detached at an intermediate station, and are then shunted into sidings without a staff member checking that there were no passengers still on board. This leads to two boys finding themselves marooned in the sidings. I recall being surprised by this on first reading it, as it seemed highly implausible. While I had not been around in 1961, it seemed to me even as an 11-year-old that surely someone would check coaches were empty before shunting them into sidings.

What planet is this ?

Modern day health'n'safety paranoia checks these things out but that 'back in the day' was more the exception than the rule that a check was done.

As the author, Anthony Buckeridge, generally stuck to realistic events in his fiction, rather than featuring impossibilities, this struck me as different from the rest of his work.

The last, and really unbelievable, was that when the two boys marooned in the coaches in the sidings alerted the crew of a shunting engine to their presence, the crew carried the two boys in the cab back to the nearest station and then arranged for them to complete their journey in the brake-van of a freight train going that way.

That seemed wholly unbelievable to me as an 11-year-old. It seemed to me that the boys would either be escorted out to the road and left to walk, or perhaps driven back to the station by road, not conveyed in a shunter's cab, and when they did get to the nearest station they would be put on the next passenger train, not given a ride on a freight train.

hmmmmm I can think of 4 examples even in early 1980s of stranded passengers being conveyed to destination by light engines or parcels trains from New St - all long distance - two occasions were light engines south west one to Bristol one to Cardiff, other 2 were passengers conveyed in parcels train loco cab. Come to think of it as typing I can think of a 5th example, passengers in cab of parcels trains Up MML from Leicester. If BR was doing that in 1980s you can be sure it was going on before.

 

[norbitonflyer]

There were, but the others were not of a linguistic nature.
There might be one where the train, which is from Victoria to the South Coast, is described as being loco-hauled by an "electric engine". I noticed that when first reading the book aged about 11, as I knew that by then, the mid-70's, all such services were EMUs, but I recall thinking that perhaps they had used locos 15 years earlier. I still don't know today whether SR ran any loco-hauled services into Sussex in 1961.

Certaibnly deisel services (class 33) on the Oxted line well into the 1970s (but not electric, of course) . A special school train to the Sussex Coast could well have been hauled by a 73 (or even, in 1961, one of the original Class 70s)

Separating two EMU's would not work in the story unless there was a through corridor connection between them, which I don't believe featured on any Southern EMU in service in 1961.

4CORS had been in service since 1938, and there were 4CEPs by 1961 as well. Both worked on the Central Division although 6PUL/6PANs (which were only gangwayed within sets) were the usual fare on the Brighton/Lewes/Eastbourne routes

 

[etr221]

It is also not uncommon in US terminology to refer to lead motor coaches in unit formation as a locomotive.

The 'standard' definition of a train in the operating rules on American RRs is 'One or more engines (i.e. locomotives), with or without cars, displaying markers' - which means that the leading motor coaches will be considered 'engines'.

I don't know if they ever had to provide for gravity worked trains...

 

[Taunton]

I regret to advise that "carriage" was indeed a onetime common term for what we would call a single compartment, among those born in the Victorian era. In youthful times I found this quite obviously incorrect usage by elderly relatives somewhat grating, until I slowly came to realise it was a traditional usage.

'Tickets, please!' said the Guard, putting his head in at the window. In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about the same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the carriage.

- From Lewis Carroll, 'Alice through the Looking Glass', Chapter 3. I suppose some nowadays might find ticket inspection through the window of each compartment equally implausible, until they look up the term 'ticket platform'.

The last, and really unbelievable, was that when the two boys marooned in the coaches in the sidings alerted the crew of a shunting engine to their presence, the crew carried the two boys in the cab back to the nearest station and then arranged for them to complete their journey in the brake-van of a freight train going that way.

Possibly you might also find unbelievable being invited up to the cab of a Pannier Tank, and being allowed to ply a shovelful of coal into the fire and work the reversing lever - or going in to the cab of a dmu and operating the 2-tone horn for the farm crossings when rolling down the Minehead branch, only occupants of the front car on a winter's afternoon ...

 

[43096]

As confusing as the Indian use of bogie instead carriage.

That may well have originated in the U.K. I have seen references to that term in historic reporting. Presumably it is short for “bogie vehicles” as opposed to 4 or 6 wheel.

 

[norbitonflyer]

going in to the cab of a dmu and operating the 2-tone horn for the farm crossings when rolling down the Minehead branch, only occupants of the front car on a winter's afternoon ...

I too have been invited, aged 8, to ride in a dmu cab and operate the hooter.

Another example of a novelist not understanding how trains work.

"the floor began to vibrate as the engine roared into life", (Then) a voice overhead said "Wotcher", .......his body unfroze, he was able to push himself into a sitting position, wipe the blood off his bruised face and raise his head to look up at [his rescuer]. "We'd better get out of here" she said as the train windows became obscured with steam and the train began to move out of the station".

Fine if it's a DMU, but this is the Hogwarts Express (Half Blood Prince, Chapter 8). The floor of a loco-hauled train shouldn't vibrate when it's stationary, and in a steam (or electric) train the two underlined passages would be simultaneous. Only a diesel needs to rev up before it moves.

Characters in the series are forever popping up to the front to talk to the driver too!

 

[Rescars]

That may well have originated in the U.K. I have seen references to that term in historic reporting. Presumably it is short for “bogie vehicles” as opposed to 4 or 6 wheel.

Just to add to the fun, there were at one time some non-bogie 8-wheelers.

Whilst we are at it, what, in relation to rolling stock, is the difference between a carriage and a coach - if any?

 

[snowball]

- From Lewis Carroll, 'Alice through the Looking Glass', Chapter 3.

The title of the book does not include Alice's name.

 

[Calthrop]

Another example of a novelist not understanding how trains work.

"the floor began to vibrate as the engine roared into life, (before) it started to move out of the station". Fine if it's a DMU, but this is the Hogwarts Express (Half Blood Prince, Chapter 8). The floor of a loco-hauled train shouldn't vibrate when it's stationary, and steam (nor electric) traisn do not make any extra noise until tghey actual start to move.

Characters in the series are forever popping up to the front to talk to the driver too!

I have a theory -- which I have previously aired on these Forums -- that the Hogwarts Express is actually a magical simulacrum of a steam train: powered not by any Muggle means of propulsion, but by who-knows-what wizardly artifice -- the Wizarding World found the whole Muggle steam-railway thing, stirring / aesthetically pleasing; thus they, superficially, copied it. So on the wizarding rail scene, basically "anything goes". (I believe that in some comments, subsequent to the books' publication, J.K. Rowling has implied otherwise: i.e. that the Express is essentially, steam-powered in the conventional way; but what does she know? -- she's only the author .)

 

[norbitonflyer]

Last loco hauled non-corridor compartment stock - Experimental GRP bodied S1000S, built 1963 using the frame of one of the carriages desgtroyed in the 1957 Lewisham crash. Withdrawn 1973. Other than that, the last-built non-corridor stock was built in 1956, some examples surviving until the GN electrification in 1977 (codes C, S, or BS)
Non-gangwayed stock (open - SO[NG] and SLO) or side corridor (CL).
Compartment stock - last built were mark 2d FKs and BFKs in 1972 - a few are still in use.

DMU Non-corridor Compartment. The only example I can find were the last seven class 205s, (1127-1133) built 1962, whose driving trailers had a single compartment not communicating with the rest of the carriage, next to the driver's compartment. (In earlier units this was fitted as a luggage compartment)

DMU non-gangwayed. All units iof classes 204, 205 and 207, the last built in 1962. Of the DMMUs, 115, 116,117, 118, 121, 122, 125 and 127 were built without gangways, the last of which entered service in 1960. Most had gangways fitted later in life, but I don't think the 127s ever did. The single units 121 and 122 were of course non-gangwayed, as were the driving trailers built to work with them, the last of which, W56289, was built in 1961, and was not withdrwan until 1992)

The last DMU cars to be built with side corridors were the DMSKs and TCKs for Class 123 in 1963. (The only other DMUs to have compartments in were classes 124 and 126, and the SR DEMUs)

EMU, non-corridor compratment. The last AC units were the DTSs and MBSs of class 308/1, built in 1961 (later rebuilt as open saloons). The 53xx 4EPBs had "semi-open" trailers (half compartment, half open) and the last of these was built in January 1962. I believe the very last to run were the TSs in the 55xx EPBs, reformed in 1988 to concentrate the compartment stock in as few units as possible and only to be used in peak hours - the last was withdrawn in 1991.

Non-gangwayed. Apart from the waterloo & City units, class 482 of 1992, the last complete units to have no gangways were the Scottish AM11 Blue Trains of 1967. The last non-gangwayed individual emu vehicles to be built were the MBSOs in the LTS's class 308 units 313-316, converted in 1971 from luggage vans as the liner traffic to Tilbury had fallen away.

Last EMUs to be built with side corridors were the Class 442 Wessex units, although I think some VEPs (with compartments) were still around after the 442s had been converted to open layout.