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Public transport history

The first vehicle of transportation within the city of Porto that references it is called "carroção".

However, prior to the carroção and working as a means of public transport, but individual existed the litters and the car seats, the urzelina is and machineries.

The palanquins or "andas" would have been used in the port between the 21st century. XVI and XIX and would be at the service of fidalgas and princesses, but served also to transport elderly or infirm and elements linked to the clergy. Also there were private.

Initially the designation "litter" and "seat" was used interchangeably. Already in the 19th century had a different meaning. Both were composed of a wooden box, but the "litter" had larger was transported on the backs of two donkeys and carried a maximum of two "passengers". The bather, more "slight" that litter, carrying only one person and was normally loaded by two Galicians.

Another very common means of transport in the second half of the 18th century were the urzelina is and the machineries. The urzelina is and jalopies, although referred to as identical, there are some differences.

The sege, that could have the ability to carry four people, consisted of a box seat belt in two huge wheels and pulled by two horses or mules driven by a "boleeiro" that was going on a pair of horses. Most distinguished families and traders regularly used this form of transport.

With the advent of the car seats are urzelina is to be used only by women, sick and midwives.
The traquitana was based on four wheels, being the back of the car quite larger than the front.

As for the carroção, considered the first collective public transport in the city of Porto, was nothing more than a car of oxen transformed into closed carriage, with a door and side Windows and two seats arranged one in front of the other. The tractive force was a junta de bois, due to the scarcity of horses as a result of the French invasions. The "inventor" of such means of transport have been Manuel José de Oliveira who had by nickname "Mad-Zé".

Some intellectuals of the time aware of the transformations of society and always critical of some of them, have left us interesting records and snide comments about carroção. One such vitriolic records is Camilo Castelo Branco commenting so nerve-wracking and time-consuming travel made in carroção: "books, libraries, bookstores, huge books need, want, but it is to the carroção, where the time is infinite, the long life as the years of prison, and the impercetível as the movement of rotation of the globe"

This transport will have dominated in the first half of the 19th century, having fallen into decay with the emergence of other means of transport more light and more comfortable as the "omnibus" and "American".

As for the omnibus, a contemporary of carroção, have been introduced in the city at the time of the Constitution of the Union transportation company, in 1839, who imported four coches called omnibus for transport.

Its shape would be in many aspects similar to carroção, that is, a huge glazed wooden box, based on two pairs of wheels, but "male" or pulled by horses and not by oxen.

There were still in the city in the middle of the last century, other means of public transport such as the char-à-Bancs, very similar to omnibus, and trains of the square that could be considered, taxis that already settled in the main points of the city to take your customers and even luggage.

The Ripert, animal traction vehicles very similar to char-à-bancs, caused some headaches to the directors of the company and many altercations between Coachmen and this is because the distance between axes of these cars was equal to that of the Americans, however, began to circulate, hence they seize the rails from Rails to move and improve your performance, claiming that what was on the street was to be used by everyone. In addition to wear the material, were unfair competition, especially in the summer, at the time of the baths. This conflict ended with the replacement of Rails by others in steel and tougher and that do not fit the shot of Ripert. These vehicles have had short-lived, having disappeared from circulation in 1910.

But the real revolution in transport was the "American". Public transport vehicle pulled by one or more pairs of mules or horses that circulated about Rails and it is this characteristic that made him truly revolutionary.


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