A baggage car or luggage van (UK terminology) is a type of railway vehicle

Railroad car

A railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...

 often forming part of the composition of passenger trains and used to carry passenger

Passenger

A passenger is a term broadly used to describe any person who travels in a vehicle, but bears little or no responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination....

s' checked baggage, as well as parcel

Package delivery

Package delivery or parcel delivery is the shipping of packages or high value mail as single shipments. While the service is provided by most postal systems, private package delivery services have also existed in competition with and in place of public postal services.-Package delivery in the...

s ("express"). Being typically coupled at the front of the train behind the locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

, this type of car is sometimes described as "head-end equipment". Passengers are not normally allowed access to baggage cars while trains are in motion.

A special type of baggage car came equipped with doors on one end to facilitate transport of large pieces of equipment and scenery for Broadway shows and other productions. These "theatrical" baggage cars were assigned theatrical names (i.e. Romeo and Juliet

Juliet (PRR)

The Juliet was a scenery baggage car of the Pennsylvania Railroad, one of 47 built by the Pennsy between 1917 and 1922 to transport set pieces for Broadway theatre shows and other theatrical events. Car numbers of this group were 6055 to 6099....

), and were similar to the "horse cars" that were used to transport racehorses.