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Stage station
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Stage station
A stage station, also known as a relay station, posting station or a staging post, is a facility along a main road or trade route where a traveller can rest or replace exhausted horses for fresh ones, since long journeys are much faster when using well fed and rested mounts. A stage is the space between the stops known as stations, posts, or relays.
Organised long-distance land travel became known as staging or posting. Stagecoaches, post chaises, private vehicles, individual riders and the like followed the already long-established system for messengers, couriers and letter-carriers.
Through metonymy the name stage also came to be used for a stagecoach alone.
Until well into the 19th century an overland traveller anxious to reach a destination as fast as possible depended on animals. Systems of arranging a supply of fresh horses to expedite travel along a particular route had been in use at least as far back as the ancient Romans when they were used by messengers and couriers or bearers of letters. Individually mounted riders are subject to their personal endurance limits. Posting could continue indefinitely with brief stops for fresh horses and crew. In addition to a carriage's obvious advantages (a degree of safety and shelter for the inside passengers and accessibility to non-riders) on long trips it tended to be the most rapid form of passenger travel.
In 18th century England, a posting-coach on good roads when regularly provided with fresh horses traveled as fast as 10 miles per hour (16 km/h). Post-horses, ridden by postilions (also called post-boys), were hired from a postmaster at a post house. At the next stage when new horses were harnessed, the post-boys were responsible for returning their horses to their starting post. Distances of each stage ranged from 8 to 20 miles apart. Common in England and continental Europe, posting declined once railways provided faster transport that was much more comfortable.
Posting remained popular in France and other European countries with less developed rail networks. Stagecoaches and mail coaches were known in continental Europe as diligences and postcoaches. Stage travel in the US averaged 60 to 70 miles (97 to 113 km) in a day.[better source needed]
In a 1967 article in The Carriage Journal, published for the Carriage Association of America, Paul H. Downing recounts that the word post is derived from the Latin postis which in turn derives from the word which means to place an upright timber (a post) as a convenient place to attach a public notice. Postal and postage follow from this. Medieval couriers were caballari postarus or riders of the posts. The riders mounted fresh horses at each post on their route and then rode on. Post came to be applied to the riders then to the mail they carried and eventually to the whole system. In England regular posts were set up in the 16th century.
The riders of the posts carried the government’s letters. The local postmasters delivered the letters as well as providing horses to the royal couriers. They also provided horses to other travellers.
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Stage station
A stage station, also known as a relay station, posting station or a staging post, is a facility along a main road or trade route where a traveller can rest or replace exhausted horses for fresh ones, since long journeys are much faster when using well fed and rested mounts. A stage is the space between the stops known as stations, posts, or relays.
Organised long-distance land travel became known as staging or posting. Stagecoaches, post chaises, private vehicles, individual riders and the like followed the already long-established system for messengers, couriers and letter-carriers.
Through metonymy the name stage also came to be used for a stagecoach alone.
Until well into the 19th century an overland traveller anxious to reach a destination as fast as possible depended on animals. Systems of arranging a supply of fresh horses to expedite travel along a particular route had been in use at least as far back as the ancient Romans when they were used by messengers and couriers or bearers of letters. Individually mounted riders are subject to their personal endurance limits. Posting could continue indefinitely with brief stops for fresh horses and crew. In addition to a carriage's obvious advantages (a degree of safety and shelter for the inside passengers and accessibility to non-riders) on long trips it tended to be the most rapid form of passenger travel.
In 18th century England, a posting-coach on good roads when regularly provided with fresh horses traveled as fast as 10 miles per hour (16 km/h). Post-horses, ridden by postilions (also called post-boys), were hired from a postmaster at a post house. At the next stage when new horses were harnessed, the post-boys were responsible for returning their horses to their starting post. Distances of each stage ranged from 8 to 20 miles apart. Common in England and continental Europe, posting declined once railways provided faster transport that was much more comfortable.
Posting remained popular in France and other European countries with less developed rail networks. Stagecoaches and mail coaches were known in continental Europe as diligences and postcoaches. Stage travel in the US averaged 60 to 70 miles (97 to 113 km) in a day.[better source needed]
In a 1967 article in The Carriage Journal, published for the Carriage Association of America, Paul H. Downing recounts that the word post is derived from the Latin postis which in turn derives from the word which means to place an upright timber (a post) as a convenient place to attach a public notice. Postal and postage follow from this. Medieval couriers were caballari postarus or riders of the posts. The riders mounted fresh horses at each post on their route and then rode on. Post came to be applied to the riders then to the mail they carried and eventually to the whole system. In England regular posts were set up in the 16th century.
The riders of the posts carried the government’s letters. The local postmasters delivered the letters as well as providing horses to the royal couriers. They also provided horses to other travellers.
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