It's hard to understand exactly why Georges Méliès was still occasionally filming documentary shorts by 1898. Back in 1896 it was excusable--after all, Méliès hadn't yet 'discovered' (as some people like to believe) the film edit or any of the special effects you see in later works of his. By 1898, however, he was well aware of this...so why was he still doing things like putting cameras on trains?
Part of this could have been he had not yet realized all the stuff he could produce using this simple editing concept. Like others of the time, he was still playing with the invention, trying new things... In this case, the camera is on top of the train, not at the front of the locomotive like other Phantom Ride films of the time (a Phantom Ride being a view from on top of a train as shot by the camera). Likely he hadn't yet tried such a gimmick yet. It would take a bit longer for him to realize the potential of the substitution splice.
This movie still retains some interest for at least film historians because it's one of the few rare documentary films by the director that still survives today. Many of his earlier, 1896 and 1897 documentaries cease to exist. That said, it's hard to understand exactly how film historians are able to identify this as being a Méliès short since so many similar movies were made at the time by just about everybody else. It's interesting in these regards, but not really a typical Méliès film and something the average person now will want to skip.
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