An Inside Look Behind the Train Track Scene in ‘Stand By Me’ Filmed in Northern California

Stand By Me is a cult classic movie from 1986 about four curious boys wandering into the wilderness in search of a dead body. The movie strikes a cord with many people who remember the trials and tribulations of childhood, but it’s especially fun for us Northern Californians, who recognize some of the locations in the movie as right in our backyard.

The most memorable experience from the movie is the famous train track scene, where the four boys, unwilling to go around the massive reservoir (which is Lake Britton in real life), take the risk of crossing the water on train tracks. When the train comes screeching down the tracks, the kids are in a life or death situation.

Here is the classic Stand By Me train track scene:

The scene is fantastic, but just as fantastic is the writer, director and actors describing what it was like to film the scene. See this outtake from Crossing the Tracks, a behind the scenes documentary of Stand By Me: