On the road with Cobb & Co.
By 1888 Cobb & Co. was building its coaches in Charleville, in the south west of Queensland. The bodies of Cobb & Co. coaches were suspended on thick strips of leather called thoroughbraces. Coaches rocked forward and backward on the thoroughbraces. The coaches could negotiate the roughest tracks but passengers often suffered motion sickness. On the rough dusty tracks passengers were sometimes rocked right out of their seats. Coach travel was no picnic.
Coaches were usually pulled by teams of five or seven horses which were changed along the route every 25 to 40 kilometres. As the groom changed the tired horses for fresh ones, his wife may have provided lunch. Meals of stew, salt beef or damper were common at changing stations, and even prickly pear jam and stewed galah were on the menu in far flung areas. Passengers were always happy to arrive in the larger towns with established hotels.
Approximately 80kms was a day's journey by a Cobb & Co. coach, and around 40 horses and six staff would have been involved in getting the coach, passengers and mail through. There were some other small coach operators, but they found it difficult to compete with cobb+co and its comprehensive network of change stations.
