Schienen zum Nachbarn - Teil 2

This Traveltalk series short celebrates San Francisco, past and present.

The largest railroad community in history at work making the Pennsylvania Railroad become the Standard Railroad of the World. Generations of Altoona shopmen and train crews created the extraordinary legacy this film brings to life.

1917, The Train from Hell is an historical documentary about a train accident during WW1.

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.

Trucking is big business. Cashing in on the boom is Shannan’s trucker driving school. But can she pass her own HGV test?

The film explores how the three British colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island became provinces of Canada and charts the subsequent decline of their economies after Confederation. Photographs, archival drawings, cartoons and interviews with Maritime historians are used to document the case.

Short film about electric railroad lines

Not everyone who nowadays drives on the A73 between Nuremberg and Bamberg knows that they are travelling on a former waterway. Still half a century ago, the old Ludwig-Main-Danube-Canal (in short: Ludwig-Canal) was located here, which represented the last puzzle piece to a navigable connection between the oceans. Build within a remarkable ten years’ time of construction, the canal, which was opened in 1846, was the realization of a small dream of humanity as it finally connected the North Sea with the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the idea could not support itself financially: Too powerful were the railroads, which saw its rise simultaneously, and which soon undermined the ambitious canal project’s future as they were in every regard the faster, more comfortable, and better means of transportation of the hour.

A hand-colored ride along the Bangor-Conwy-Colwyn Bay railroad filmed from an express train from the London and North Western Railway; Stations, vistas and a tunnel under the Conwy Castle (misspelled in the title) in North Wales.

For the past ten years, Jürgen Henn has filmed over-height trucks crashing into the 11foot8 train bridge affectionately nicknamed the "Can Opener." In that time, millions have viewed the crashes online. Regional, national, and international news organizations have dined out on the story and the goofy crash reels. But why do motorists continue to crash despite the many warnings, sensors, and signs? And what is it about these crashes that holds our attention? In this piece, we look for the humanity in human error.

Neil Oliver describes the worst ever railway accident in the UK, which happened a hundred years ago on 22 May 1915, in which three trains collided at Quintinshill near Gretna Green. One of the trains was a troop train taking soldiers to fight in World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli: many of the dead were in this train which caught fire due to escaped gas from the archaic gas lighting in the carriages. The cause of the crash was attributed to a catastrophic signalman's error, but Neil examines whether there were other contributory factors and whether there was a cover-up to prevent investigation of them, making convenient scapegoats of the signalmen.

Vignettes of the New England Steam features the films of noted rail photographers Albert Michaud and William P. Price, as they document the handsome steam power (and the occasional pesky diesel) of the Grand Trump, Central Vermont, Boston & Maine, and New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroads. The mostly color and mostly 16mm production begins with the Grand Trunk in New Hampshire, then moves to the Central Vermont in the White River Jct vicinity, and the Boston & Maine and New Haven, primarily around Boston. Many wheel arrangements are featured, as is the passenger and freight rolling stock of the era ...including truss-rodded clerestory-roofed wooden maroon passenger cars on the B&M! So come along with Clear Block Productions as we journey back to the late 1940's and early 1950's to witness Steam's Final Stand in the Northeast in Vignettes of the New England Steam.

The German railroad has been in operation since 1835, but the darkest chapter in German railroad history is often forgotten. Extensive original film material from the Nazi era shows the dubious role played by the Deutsche Reichsbahn during the Second World War and how little resistance there was among the railroad workers.