The relationship between the train and cinema go back along way – in fact to the very beginning of cinema. The train window with its fleeting images has often been compared to the cinema screen (something that I explored in Traversal – First Passage) offering passengers something akin to a cinematic experience; so with this in mind, it is little wonder that one of the first subjects that cinema pictured was train travel. From around 1897 a popular film genre involving a different type of view from the train emerged known as ‘phantom rides’. In these films both the cameraperson and the camera would be strapped to the front of a moving train, the resulting film gave the viewer an exciting experience that was both dynamic (cameras in early film were generally completely static and fixed only in one place) and offered a unique perspective, that is, the view from the front of the train as it accelerated along train tracks, entered tunnels and went round corners. What was exhilarating about phantom rides, and hence its name, was that the movement filmed appeared to be powered by an invisible force.
'Hale's Tours of the World'
To start with the journey’s pictured in phantom rides stayed close to home, such as the one seen above in View from an Engine Front – Barnstaple (1898) by the Warwick Trading Company, shown here courtesy of the fantastic BFI film channel. Before long, however, the entertainment possibilities of these films was to be explored in a much more ambitious way in 'Hale's Tours of the World'. In these attractions the phantom ride would screen in a specially designed cinema styled on a train carriage, with cinemagoers seated on train benches to watch films depicting ‘exotic’ scenes from around the world. Sight, however, was not the only sense to be stimulated in these events as the fake train carriage would vibrate, shake and tilt to simulate the movement of the train. While the film might be silent, plenty of other sound effects were on offer such as the noise of the train wheels grinding and the train whistle blowing. Following from a pre-cinema device - the moving panorama – out of the side windows viewers (passages) would see painted scenery roll by. You have to wonder if ‘Hale’s Tours of the World’ were not in fact the very first attempt at virtual reality.
During a recent stopover in Hong Kong, I had occasion to think of the phantom rides of early cinemas as I took a cable car ride from the top of Lantau Island. Looking out of the front of the glass encased car I glided gently through the air watching spectacular landscape pass me by, with my small photographic camera running on video mode and seated comfortably (and safely) I thought about those pioneer filmmakers who strapped themselves to the front of steam trains and ambitiously powered themselves towards the future.
