Heather Stilin graduated from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House and was awarded a fellowship at Mo i Rana, the national sound and image archive of Norway. She worked on the preservation of By Rail and Trail during her tenure on the collections staff at PFA from 2002 to 2005.

This special screening invites you to enjoy the sights of a great American railway journey, with glimpses of vintage advertising techniques and the film preservation process along the way. Produced by the Southern Pacific Railway in the early 1930s to entice winter travelers hoping to escape to warmer climes, By Rail and Trail celebrates the scenic wonders along the railway's popular Sunset Route, using footage from various sources. A local collector donated a print of the film to PFA in 2002, and in 2003 the archive received a grant from the American Film Institute to preserve it. Including the complete By Rail and Trail as well as other footage shot for Southern Pacific, our program traverses North America from the New York skyline and the French Quarter during Mardi Gras, to the nascent cities of the Southwest, to our own Bay Area with its then bridgeless Golden Gate.