English

Pack train near Mt Rainier, USA
(A. H. Barnes, c1910)

Alternative forms

• pack-train
• packtrain

Noun

pack train ‎(plural pack trains)

1. (dated) A procession of beasts of burden, such as horses or mules, laden with freight.
   • 1869, Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, ch. 41:

     Shortly after six, our pack train arrived. . . . We had nineteen serving men and twenty-six pack mules! It was a perfect caravan.

   • 1914, Zane Grey, Light of the Western Stars, ch. 9:

     Here they met a pack-train of burros that came down the mountain trail.

   • 1944 June 12, "Medicine: War-Horse Hospital," Time (retrieved 24 May 2015):

     In Italy's rugged mountains, mules and horses can go where a jeep can not go. . . . Each pack train has its own veterinarian to give first aid.

   • 2003 March 8, Edward Rothstein, "The Photographer Who Found a Way to Slow Down Time," New York Times (retrieved 24 May 2015):

     Muybridge . . . would travel through the Western landscape with as many as four assistants and a pack train to carry his glass negatives and chemical preparations and cameras.

See also

• pack animal