Whistle-top tour

Origin of: Whistle-top tour

Whistle-top tour

This expression usually refers to a journey or tour that is quick and punctuated by frequent short stops, most commonly in election campaigns or celebrity tours. The expression is originally American and derives from the railroads during the 1920s when passengers who wanted trains to stop at rural, out-of-the-way stations, would ask the conductor who in turn would sound a whistle twice indicating to the driver that the train must stop. It was a bit like a ‘request’ stop on British bus routes. During the late 1940s, whistlestop was being used figuratively to mean frequent, short stops but not necessarily connected to railroads and the expression whistle-stop tour itself is first attested from c. 1949.