wagon-way, waggon-way
1. An artificial road or a line of rails in a colliery upon which the coal wagons are run.
| 1727 De Foe Eng. Tradesm. xlvi. (1841) II. 173 [A coal wagon] which by the means of an artificial road, called a wagon-way, goes with the help of but one horse..to the nearest river. 1837 L. Hebert Engin. & Mech. Encycl. II. 375 The intended rail-road, or ‘waggon-way’, as it was termed. |
| attrib. 1764 London Mag. Mar. 145/1 If the waggon-way-rails..be wet sometimes, a man cannot stop the waggon. |
2. A road made for the passage of wagons; also a track made by wagons.
| 1764 Museum Rust. II. lii. 148 A Letter..on the Advantages of making good Roads, or Waggon-Ways, in a Farm. 1877 Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 213 A wagon-way—not a road—has been made across this divide, by which heavy machinery has been hauled over. |