A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
The first mountains that the Amsterdam-based Colombian artist and filmmaker Ana Bravo Pérez saw in the Netherlands were black. In this experimental work, she follows the stench of the coal in the port of Amsterdam back to its origin: an open wound in northern Colombia. The mine is located in the territory of the Wayuu and has a huge impact on the indigenous people.
A documentary outlining the railroad's roll in expanding the nation.
A Union Pacific production outlining the Big Boy locomotive and the history of the last great steam engine to rule the rails
A documentary on railroads doing their daily tasks created by trhe The Milwaukee Railroad
A documentary on the passing of the steam locomotive as the primary means of transportation in the United States
A documentary outlining railroad work and the effects on the lives impacted by the iron horse
A production by Chevrolet from 1935 on safety around trains
Documentary on the evolution and introduction of modern coal burning locomotives on the Norfolk and Western Railway line.
Film on the movement of material from the Chicago and Northwestern System.
The sory of the railroad's roll in getting beef to your local market
A BFA Educational media production on western expansion via railroads and the role they played in the foundation of the Americas
Take a breathtaking train a ride through Nothern Quebec and Labrador on Canada’s first First Nations-owned railway. Come for the celebration of the power of independence, the crucial importance of aboriginal owned businesses and stay for the beauty of the northern landscape.
Several films have been made about the lives of train hobos, but Aleksi Pohjavirta's A Good Day to Die is probably the first Finnish documentary on the subject. The film follows Billy, who travels in a pump on freight trains. In the way of life, the feeling of freedom and letting yourself be carried away by chance are attractive and they make the train bomb strive for a windy ride again and again.
"Adrift" is shot on the arctic island of Spitzbergen and in Norway. It combines time-lapse photography with stop-motion animation of the landscape. Through camera-angles and framing the film gradually dislocates the viewer from a stable base where one loses the sense of scale and grounding.
A short documentary about the construction of the parisian subway in the 50s.
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Commemorate the 40th anniversary of one of the largest freight carriers in the nation! Look back at the creation, evolution and current operating status of this storied railroad.
First transmitted in 1969, this documentary follows the construction of the world’s most advanced underground system. Macdonald Hastings narrates the story of one of the most complex tunnel engineering feats of its time. He reveals the isolation felt by the miners who spent six years burrowing deep beneath the streets of London, shows what they did beneath one of London's most famous department stores and explains why the ground at Tottenham Court Road had to be frozen during the hottest weeks of 1966. The result is a brave new world of transport with automated trains, two way mirrors, automatic fare collection and closed-circuit television, all choreographed by a computer programme played out by an updated version of a pianola located in a control room somewhere near Euston station.