Trolley facts for kids

A trolley is a small vehicle with wheels that helps people carry things easily. You can push a trolley to move items from one place to another. They are super helpful in many different places!

What is a Trolley?

A trolley is basically a cart on wheels. Its main job is to make carrying heavy or many items much simpler. Instead of struggling with bags, you can just load everything onto a trolley and push it along.

Shopping Trolleys

A row of parked shopping trolleys by a supermarket.

One of the most common types you'll see is the shopping trolley. You find these in supermarkets and other big stores where you pick out your own items. In American English, these are often called shopping carts.

When you go shopping, you can put all the things you want to buy into the trolley. This makes it easy to collect everything as you walk through the store. Once you're done, you take your trolley to the checkout. After you pay, you can usually wheel the trolley, full of your purchases, right out to your car.

Sometimes, you might need to pay a small amount of money, called a deposit, to use a shopping trolley. This often happens when trolleys are linked together in a chain. You put a coin (like a £1 coin in Britain) into a slot to release a trolley. You get your coin back when you return the trolley to its parking spot and link it back into the chain. This system helps make sure trolleys are returned and don't get left all over the parking lot.

Trolleys at Airports and Stations

Trolleys are also very useful at airports and large railway stations. Here, passengers use them to carry their luggage. Imagine trying to carry several heavy suitcases by hand! A trolley makes it much easier to move your bags from the car to the check-in desk, or from the train to a taxi. Unlike some shopping trolleys, the deposits for these trolleys are usually not given back.

Tea Trolleys

Another type of trolley is a tea-trolley. This is a smaller trolley, often used inside homes. Traditionally, people used them to serve afternoon tea. They would carry plates, cups, saucers, sandwiches, and cakes.

Tea-trolleys are also used in places like hospitals and offices. In these settings, they help staff deliver cups of tea and coffee to people. It's a convenient way to bring drinks and snacks around to many different rooms or desks.

Trolley vs. Tram

It can be a bit confusing, but in American English, the word "trolley" can sometimes mean a tram (which is also called a streetcar). A tram is a vehicle that runs on rails, usually in a city, and is used for public transport.

It's important not to mix this up with a trolleybus. A trolleybus is a type of bus that gets its electricity from overhead cables, similar to how a tram gets power. So, while they both use "trolley" in their names and get power from above, a tram runs on rails and a trolleybus is a type of bus.