wagonload

plural wagonloads · alternative wagon load · alternative wagon-load · alternative waggonload

1. The amount that can be loaded onto a wagon.

   The countryside through which the line passes grows some beet, too. Ten wagonloads a day are despatched from Fethard and smaller quantities from Farranaleen, Laffan's Bridge and Horse & Jockey.

   1957 May 28, Walter McGrath, “The Thurles-Clonmel Line, C.I.E.”, in Railway Magazine, page 320

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   Then they piled up the forests they had cut down into a vast pyre in circuit equal to a city, and having let a lake into the caldron that was to seethe it, and carried for eight months in succession a hundred daily wagons[-]load of salt to season the pot, they kindled the crackling mass, and as it flamed up five galleys, every one of which carried its five banks of rowers complete, cruised round the margin of the caldron sea, and as it bubbled up from below, issued prompt directions to the crowd not to overboil the contents.

   1853 December, “Finis of the Fins”, in Fraser’s Magazine (Fishing Excerpts; volume II), volume XLVIII, number CCLXXXVIII, page 702

   Synonyms: wagonful

2. The load of a wagon.
3. railwaysA type of freight train service in which individual wagons have separate destinations and/or cargos.

   This firm regularly consigns margarine in palletised wagon-loads to a wide variety of destinations.

   1961 September, B. Perren, “The Tilbury Line serves industrial North Thameside”, in Modern Railways, page 359

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   Tinsley Yard in Sheffield was once one of the largest and most advanced 'hump' marshalling yards in the world. But a decline in wagonload freight led to its swift demise and much of the site has lain derelict since the 1980s. MICHAEL RHODES examines this rise and fall in Tinsley's fortunes, and the new lease of life it has been offered by rising container traffic

   2021 June 2, “Tinsley reborn...”, in RAIL, number 932, page 33

4. informalA very large amount.

   Synonyms: abundance, battalion, arseload, assload, bellyload, boatload, brimful, busload