There never was a scene in this serial with Pauline tied to railroad tracks, either in the footage that survives or in that which does not. Very detailed plot summaries of all 20 original episodes show nothing remotely similar to that occurred in any of the episodes. The scene resembling that in The Perils of Pauline (1947) is actually a recreation of a scene in a Keystone comedy called Teddy at the Throttle (1917). Similar scenes also occurred in an earlier Keystone comedy called Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life (1913), the serial A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916) and in an episode of the "Hazards of Helen" series, The Broken Circuit (1915).
The term "cliffhanger" originated with the series, owing to a number of episodes filmed on or around the New Jersey Palisades.
The version that appears on home video is the nine-chapter French version from 1916, with the title cards translated into English. It has survived mostly complete, with the exception of Chapter 4, which is missing the first of two reels. The missing reel contained footage from the original US Chapter 17, in which Pauline's dog is kidnapped and she is lured to the den of a group of counterfeiters.
There never was a scene in this serial with Pauline tied to a conveyor belt approaching a buzz saw, either in the footage which survives or in that which does not. Very detailed plot summaries of all 20 original episodes show nothing remotely similar to that occurred in any of the episodes. A number of other silent films did contain such a scene. It was referred to as a "Blue Jeans" scene because it originated in an 1890 stage play of that name (see the book "Melodrama and Modernity" by Ben Singer, 2001, Columbia University Press, pages 183-185). Blue Jeans-style sawmill scenes were in the film version of the play Teenager lieben Heiß (1917), as well as the serials Perils of Thunder Mountain (1919) and The Timber Queen (1922).
Originally planned to be 13 chapters, it was extended to 20 chapters due to its popularity.