Stagecoach

A stagecoach is an enclosed, four-wheeled passenger vehicle drawn by a team of horses and operated on a fixed route with scheduled stops, called stages, where horses were changed and passengers could rest, developed in Europe from the seventeenth century and later widely used in North America and elsewhere before the spread of railways. Built with a suspended body to soften the ride over rough roads and typically carrying both passengers inside and additional passengers or luggage on an exposed roof seat, the stagecoach became the principal means of long-distance overland public transport for people, mail and small parcels across large parts of the world for roughly two centuries. Stagecoach lines declined rapidly wherever railways were built, though the vehicle remained in service on routes railways had not yet reached well into the nineteenth century.