slip coach

noun

slip coach

noun
1

Rail transport, Railways, Transport A coach at the end of a long-distance train which carries passengers for an intermediate destination and is decoupled or "slipped" and left behind. (In bygone times the decoupling was done on the move; the rest of the train did not stop.)

  • Slip-coach workings on the Western Region, the last stronghold of this practice, are now reduced to two daily - at Didcot off the 7.0 a.m. Weston-super-Mare-Paddington; and at Bicester (Saturdays excepted) off the 5.10 p.m. Paddington-Wolverhampton.1960 February, “Talking of Trains: The vanishing slip-coach”, in Trains Illustrated, page 72:
  • Friday, September 9, saw the last of the slip coach in Great Britain; the location was Bicester, and the train was the 5.10 p.m. from Paddington to Wolverhampton, which from September 12 began to stop there instead.1960 October, “Talking of Trains: The last of the slip coach”, in Trains Illustrated, page 577:
Synonyms
slip carriage

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.