Buster Keaton in The Railrodder (1965) | Hacker News Reader

Buster Keaton in The Railrodder (1965)

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47 pointsbrudgers20 comments

This is a somewhat sad time capsule of the dying days of (passenger) and general waning days of rail in Canada. At 7:30 he is riding into the central Union Station in Ottawa, on rail infrastructure that is now 100% gone. At about 8:50 on the Alexandra Bridge which (minus rails) is still in use and a beautiful example of the "rivet era" of steel bridges, but nearing the end of its useful life, they say, to be replaced by something different. And at 9:30 he is zipping past the old Wakefield station which (as in the movie) is still around and a restaurant. Those rails were in place until less than a decade ago, with a steam tourist train on them, but are now gone too. The high, partly wooden trestle bridge at 10:15 may well be the one at Paisley, Ontario. It still stands but rails go nowhere near that place any more. And those are just the locations I recognize.

Time moves on and rail transport becomes obsolete, but one can still be nostalgic about it.

Not everywhere, North America is only a microcosm of larger transportation solutions. I suggest checking out Eurostar or Hokkaido, one day maybe china will feel to me as accessible. https://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains/article-seven-m...

Another Canadian connection.

From the Archives: Buster Keaton’s Toronto connection

(includes Youtube link to his last film: a 30-minute documentary on construction safety)

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/01/28/from-the-archive...

Buster Keaton sadly died shortly after this was shot. After watching The Railroader I went on a marathon and watched most of his films and oh boy was he a brilliant man! So were Chaplin and Stan Laurel.

Harold Lloyd is another silent film comedy great who is probably not nearly as well known today as he should be. Recognized for, among other things, doing pretty crazy stunt work by himself (although probably his most iconic image from Safety Last! was a trick shot).

Here are a couple of good articles with photos and camera angles:

http://www.westerncostumeresearch.com/western-costume-resear...

https://silentlocations.com/2012/02/29/how-harold-lloyd-film...

It is available: https://thepiratebay.org/description.php?id=6923061

Heres the magnet link to this movie: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:63A048EA8C12C6BD2379754CD9A219D4E1090746&dn=Buster%20Keaton%20-%20The%20Railrodder%20(1965)&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.dler.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopentracker.i2p.rocks%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2F47.ip-51-68-199.eu%3A6969%2Fannounce

And at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYmcN12M97o

The video is on the linked site, too, unless it’s region locked to Canada or something.

railrodders are fun. Three decades ago i've got to ride on DIY railrodders - an open wooden box/platform with bike engine driving the repurposed auto car wheels, "kludge" doesn't even start to describe the contraptions, glorious noise and vibration - people in that Russian town use those railrodders as a personal transportation mode into/from the forest as there is an abandoned "narrow width" ("uzkokoleyka") railway branching deep into the forest left over from the long time ago when it was used by timber industry. Riding it while drinking with the fishermen/huntsmen can't be farther from the Keaton's gentleman style :)

That is so cool! I've always had a fascination with riding the rails. That sounds like a truly unique experience.

Nowadays CN has pickup trucks with train wheels that raise/lower. An old roommate drove one for work, it sounded quite interesting.

Those pickup trucks have been around since at least the 80s if not the 70s. I remember seeing them as a kid on the Burlington Northern tracks outside Chicago.

> railrodders are fun

What is a railrodder? This is the first time I’ve heard of its use outside the title of this film, and I’m pretty sure it’s referring to the Keaton character.

my mistake - i thought the word is following the "hotrod" principle of construction. The usual word would be "draisine" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draisine.

I have such good memories of watching this now and then on rainy days in elementary school. Always loved it. Paddle to the Sea was another one we saw often.

My wife bought me The Railrodder on VHS many years ago and I still have it. First thing I did was to make an MPEG version at work to save. The VHS has only been played once.

Now YouTube has it on my main page all the time and I've introduced it to my own kids.

If I had the means I'd rent out the old abandoned rail line in Toronto https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23973356#map=15/43.6760/-7...

And give people rides in a small steam train https://gwpvideo.com/image/data/TomRoltPix.Still013.jpg

Sure, it's only a couple of km, but it would be so much fun.

I feel like this must have been the inspiration for the mine cart section of super Mario rpg. Some of the music is really similar.

Wonderful little movie - just watched it. A little sad because of the nostalgia for the silent movie era. So nice that the movie is simply available on the NFB website.

Sherlock Jr. is always my recommendation for people who want to dip their toes into the truly wonderful world of Buster Keaton

"Shadow your man closely"

Sherlock Jr. is unbelievably deep and profound. For Keaton's more lightheaded humor, I recommend The Goat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXjhVZPYYRU

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