A Freight Train Drama

When his wife throws him out of the house for his constant drunkenness, Frank Weed joins a gang of crooks who derail trains and steal things in the confusion. However, one day he spots his daughter, Margaret Carle, joyriding in a freight car, and has a crisis of conscience.

Yes, this is the sort of absurd coincidence that audiences accepted.... sometimes. It's why film makers like D.W. Griffith, with a better sense of story logic, prospered, when the Patents Trust fell apart

That said, this is a very watchable film, thanks to some lovely cinematography. Some of the subjects, like trains rolling along, were easy to shoot properly; they had been making movies of trains since the beginning of the industry. However, the image of Miss Carle, her hair streaming in the wind, is very engaging.

Winnifred Greenwood gives one scene to this little drama of life in a railroad-side shanty that, after we have seen it, quite persuades us that the whole story is real. She plays the wife of a shiftless, lazy, ex-railroader and is exasperated to the point of firing him (Frank Weed) out of the house. Margaret Carle, who plays their daughter, seems too old for one scene that needed a child of ten and lacks experience, although she promises well. This child climbs into a stationary freight car for some bits of kindling and is carried off. This adventure brings her in contact with her father who has just heroically saved the express train, and the two go home together. In the cast are Thomas Dixon, Charles Barnes, Julius Frankcnburg and John Lancaster, as yeggs who attempt the train-wrecking. T. J. Commerford, Walter Roberts, Mace Barnes and Wm. Stowell are railroaders. - The Moving Picture World, December 21, 1912