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May 1904: Hales Touring Cars
George Hale purchased the invention from William J. Keefe and named it the ‘pleasure railway.’ He dressed his ticket collectors as train conductors and, as the film played, sound effects, such as a train whistle, would be heard, and the carriage would rock and sway to simulate the motion of a real carriage.
From 1905 the exhibition, now known as Hales Tours, became installed in summer amusement parks and cities throughout USA and Canada. The film programs were changed weekly, offering the illusion of travel on railway journeys from USA and Europe and other parts of the world. Because only a limited number of different films were available at any given time, audiences in the major cities quickly grew tired of them, although rural audiences remained fascinated for a good few years. By 1912, however, having been relegated to the status of a fairground sideshow, the carriages had disappeared.
Although their popularity was brief, Hales’ Tours played an important part in popularising the cinema, helping transform it from a diversion of the lower-classes into an entertainment that appealed to all classes. [ADD]
(Sources: Non-Fiction Film – A Critical History by Richard Meram Barsam, pp 29-30, Indiana University Press; The Rise of the American Film: A Critical History. By Lewis Jacobs, p8. Harcourt Brace, 1939; Before Video: A History of the Non-Theatrical Film by Anthony Slide, p4, Greenwood Press, 1992)
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