Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 December 16

= December 16 =

Horse-drawn sleighs
I remember seeing, in a televised movie many years ago, someone riding on a sleigh drawn by one or more horses. The setting might have been urban or rural or both, and the country might have been the United States. Where have horse-drawn sleighs ever been ridden? How common were they? Nowadays, the World Wide Web has some websites about horse-drawn sleighs as a tourist attraction. Are there any places nowadays where they are used as a practical means of travel (either public transit or private transit) over snow-covered terrain? —Wavelength (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The Russian Troika springs to mind as an obvious example. Troika akron.jpg AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Are you able to provide a source confirming that they are used there nowadays as a practical means of travel, and not just as a tourist attraction?
 * —Wavelength (talk) 03:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)




 * No, because you asked multiple questions, and I wasn't attempting to answer that one. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you, AndyTheGrump, for an answer to my first question. Also, I thank Alansplodge for an image and caption answering my third question.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 22:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Were you referring to Doctor Zhivago? The film is set in Russia and filmed in Canada.  See this scene with horse-draw-sleigh. μηδείς (talk) 03:49, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I have probably never seen that movie. Anyway, the sleigh in the YouTube video differs from what I remember seeing many years ago.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 04:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I should think they would have been a common form of transport in anyplace that got large amounts of snow and used horse-drawn carts in summer. They would just connect the horse(s) to the sleigh in winter.  Keeping a team of sled dogs for use in winter wouldn't have been practical.  And early motorized vehicles would have been particularly poor at handling snow and ice, until the snowmobile, snowcat, etc., were invented, and they started plowing and salting roads in winter for normal vehicles.  Today, anyone who can't afford a vehicle probably can't afford a horse and sleigh either, so that leaves them purely for entertainment and nostalgia purposes.  StuRat (talk) 06:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * They are still sometimes used on Mackinac Island, which bans cars. Rmhermen (talk) 07:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, that would be a prime example of entertainment and nostalgia purposes. Mackinac Island is a tourist destination where people visit for the "old-timey feeling" (and the fudge). StuRat (talk) 16:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * A few people live on Mackinac Island in the winter, and their everyday life is not all "nostalgia and entertainment." They are not actors or re-enactors in some historic village.  As for the sleigh, a woman born around 1900 told me once that her family had a one horse sleigh and used it for transportation in her teen years, in northern Illinois. Edison (talk) 16:41, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, but they still cater to those who do come for nostalgia and entertainment, realizing that if they brought motor vehicles onto the island in a big way, that would end their tourism bonanza. StuRat (talk) 03:01, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Rmhermen and Edison, for the information about sleighs on Mackinac Island.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 22:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * My grandmother grew up in a rural part of Canada in the early years of the 20th century and according to her stories, yes, horse-drawn sleighs were commonly used in the winter, including to take children to school. The sleighs were replaced by wheeled carts when the snow melted. Obviously, they were all replaced by motorized vehicles by the 1930s or so. --Xuxl (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Don't forget that in lots of cases, winter travel by horse-drawn sleigh was easier than summer travel by horse-drawn cart. Not only is snow normally smoother, but frozen rivers provide free, flatter routes.93.74.189.242 (talk) 07:53, 21 December 2014 (UTC)


 * But add in the potential for white-out conditions, along with slick roads, making accidents more likely, and the possibility to freeze to death if your vehicle is disabled. And travel on frozen rivers is always risky, if they aren't frozen quite everywhere. StuRat (talk) 07:58, 21 December 2014 (UTC)


 * To this day, there are (often mountainous) areas, normally using roads and paths, but not necessarily equipped to plough these roads quickly in extreme cases of heavy snow, nor necessarily equipped with enough (or any) snowmobiles. Here, horse-drawn sleighs can be the only way to get people or goods from A to B. One example was the 2012 Romanian Chess Championship in Sarata Monteoru (Buzau County), "snowbound under Code Orange, with the roads closed and power outages", see Romanian Championships in Arctic conditions (including pics of luggage, but also of chess players aboard the sleigh). ---Sluzzelin talk  12:17, 21 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, to a subsistence farmer in an inaccessible location, horses and sleighs may be cheaper to obtain and maintain than a snowmobile. And even if that changes, I doubt if everyone will immediately shoot their horses and buy snowmobiles.  Only when a horse dies or can no longer work would they think about whether to replace it with another horse or not. StuRat (talk) 16:15, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Two important questions
I have two important questions that I have been wanting to ask for lord knows how long. First question: Why is the Gerontology Research Group slacking so much? In other words, what is causing so many delays of adding new verifications to the GRG website? The GRG used to be only days behind, now it is three months behind. Is it because of Stephen Coles being sick and passing away? Question two: Is User:Deaths in 2013/My OR stuff going to be deleted as recommended? I'm done editing the page permanently. Deaths in 2013 (talk) 05:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC) KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 ) ( Chin Wag )  19:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Answer to Q1: Ask on their website. We are not affiliated with them in any way.
 * Answer to Q2: Better to ask on that page's Talk.
 * The answer to question 2 is yes, it has been deleted. Hopefully you retained an offline copy if you wanted to preserve any of it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:51, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

is walking on the back door in the bus a bad idea?
Kristine here. I almost did today because I saw other people do it and a woman got angry with me. So we got in a verbal fight. Anyway is walking to the back door of the bus illegal? Venustar84 (talk) 07:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it's illegal in your particular area, but the back door is for emergencies, not everyday use (assuming you're not talking about the side door near the back). Clarityfiend (talk) 07:29, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I think OP is talking about boarding from the rear. It depends on the bus company. Since the driver can't accept cash fares at the rear door, it's usually not allowed to board as a cash fare from the rear door. Some companies do allow boarding via the rear door if they support payment cards. Some also allow it if you are using a transfer. Every city's bus service is different. San Francisco allowed boarding from the rear for all but cash fares last time I was there. Chicago had signs saying it was unlawful to board from the rear last time I was there. You need to check the bus company policies or ask a driver. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 08:28, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've found that many cities with either prepaid tickets, or tickets you validate on the bus (either a paper ticket you punch into a machine, or an RFID card which you swipe against the reader) allow passengers on at the back if they are using these tickets (with the appropriate machine avaialble at each door). Cash passengers generally have to board at the front, to pay the driver (if indeed this is an option).  It may be that the woman got angry because you walked in the back and did not do the required action to validate your ticket, which the others did without you noticing. [User:MChesterMC|MChesterMC]] (talk) 09:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Some places may have the convention of boarding from the front and exiting from the rear to speed onloading and offloading during crowded times (one way movement moves faster). It may be the sort of thing that develops as an unwritten convention, and the locals all know it, but when an outsider comes by, they haven't "figured it out" yet.  -- Jayron 32 11:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC


 * When we had proper busses, you could ONLY get on at the back. Those were the days. Alansplodge (talk) 14:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * When there was racial segregation on buses in at least some US cities, "colored" riders could ONLY get on at the back even though they first had to pay at the front. Those were NOT the days! --65.94.50.4 (talk) 16:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Although just to make it clear, even with electronic payment, it may still be one way only. In Auckland, most buses only allow you to "tag off" at the rear, not to "tag on". (Exiting is fine at both the front and back door, although I have seen times when the driver isn't paying attention and doesn't notice someone wants to exit at the rear.) In KL, in the old days when there were conductors from memory no one cared if you boarded at the rear or front (although IIRC conductors lasted longest on minibuses which didn't have rear doors). Nowadays I think it's okay to board at the rear if you're using electronic payment but I can't recall exactly. Nil Einne (talk) 13:49, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * We can't say for sure what the policy is unless you can tell us the name of the bus system. In the USA, I've used dozens of bus systems in several states, and generally the common practice is to board at the front door, and exit from the rear. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:29, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * For two years I rode the Geary Express bus in San Francisco; that line had (iirc) one pickup downtown and then no stops for the first few miles. Most busses have only a few seats where I, with uncommonly long femurs and a crooked hip, can be comfortable.  So I'd often let a bus go by and wait for the next one so that I'd be near the front of the queue and have a better chance of getting one of those seats, which were near the rear doors.  So naturally the driver, to get going more quickly, would often open the rear doors and invite everyone to board that way – knowing that most of the passengers on that line had monthly passes. —Tamfang (talk) 22:12, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Anecdote time: I was once riding on a very crowded Chicago bus on a very cold winter day. At a stop at which there was a press of people boarding (at the front), making it difficult to board, one fellow boarded at the rear door—which had been opened by exiting passengers—to avoid the crush (and maybe to avoid paying the fare). Unfortunately, a passenger sitting near the door happened to be an off-duty police officer, who flashed his badge and told the fellow that if he didn't immediately exit the bus and reboard at the front door, he would arrest him for "theft of services". Deor (talk) 12:59, 17 December 2014 (UTC)