MBTA Ashmont - Mattapan Line: Traction Volume One
2023 · 35m · Documentary
The Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line operates 2.6 miles of track from Ashmont Station to Mattapan Station just south of Boston. We capture this neat little commuter operation in the state of Massachusetts. They operate with all PCC trolley cars! This operation offers a vital link to commuters to get to Boston easily from the suburbs of Boston! It is a landlocked line that connects with the Red Line at Ashmont Station! Filmed in 2022 & 2023 at 7 of the 8 stations.
More Like This

Life on the V: The Story of V66
2014
Boston's V66 music video station came and went in the mid-1980s but in the 18 months on the air, it was one of the only over-the-air music video channels ever created. But even popular success didn't mean it was going to last...
More info →
Chicago: America's Railroad Capital
2017
In this documentary, Chicago, America’s Railroad Capital, you’ll discover how the third largest U.S. city became the nation’s most important hub, serving six of North America’s largest railroads. Along with its robust commuter system, more rail traffic passes through Chicago than any other city in America.
More info →Speaking of Freight
1961
When a business tycoon allows himself to be 'snared' into seeing some films in a railway traffic manager's office, there must be a reason for it. In this case, it's a particularly giant-sized transport problem. But before he's convinced that the railways can help him solve it, there is an atmosphere of battle in the room, and some interesting and unexpected facts are hurled about in the course of the argument. Made to promote the use of railways to transport raw materials and finished products.
More info →The Travel Game
1958
A light and somewhat satirical look at the problems and pleasures of Continental holiday travel. A passenger on the Hook Continental Express from Liverpool St. imagines the possible destinations of his fellow passengers.
More info →
Canadian Pacific I
1974 · ★ 4.5
Canadian Pacific I is made up of a series of slowly dissolved shots done from the same framing over several months. The camera frames a window with a railway yard in the foreground, a bay in the space behind it, and misty mountains in the extreme distance. Trains occasionally pass by in the foreground. Huge ships move across the bay. Blue mists hover over the mountain heads.
More info →
Canadian Pacific II
1975 · ★ 5
Canadian Pacific II is designed as a companion piece to Canadian Pacific I. Shot from a window two storeys higher and in the building adjacent to the artists’s studio of the previous year, one enters into a dream state… an involvement with a vocabulary of seeing and feeling by subtle transitions of the passage of time
More info →
Der Super-Zug, der zu spät kommt
1979
Documentary about the German railroad system and it's trains
More info →
Segertåget
2025
On the purple trains that run through the rapeseed fields of Skåne, anger is growing. The train company is planning yet another cutback. But this time the train staff are ready to back each other! For decades, companies have competed to win lucrative public procurement contracts to run Sweden’s railways. This competition has led to the deteriorating work conditions for employees, as companies seek to establish a competitive advantage over one another. The short documentary, Segertåget (“Victory Train”), follows train drivers and train conductors who, between work shifts and the online meetings of the pandemic, organize themselves in a fight for justice and better working conditions. A story of perseverance and solidarity in a time of constant deterioration.
More info →Tommy's Train
2021
Tommy’s Train is a story about imagination, drive, and the power of a dream. Once existing as a tourist attraction in the city of Anacortes, Washington, Tommy Thompson’s Railway ran every summer from 1987 until 1999. The genuine steam locomotive and coaches were all hand built by Tommy in his garage workshop, and he maintained and operated the railway with his family.
More info →
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
1927 · ★ 7.5
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.
More info →
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
1896 · ★ 7.1
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.
More info →