Long running movie series adventure train films. This thrill-a-minute series was the longest running of the entire silent film era. It was produced between 1914 and 1917, and consisted of 119 almost weekly episodes. The series began with silent serial film queen Helen Holmes as the star - with an occasional actor taking over the lead. Eventually Helen Gibson took over the role of Helen. Unlike the cliffhanger serials of the era, The Hazards of Helen is actually a film series made up of near autonomous single reel twelve-minute melodramas. Most episodes of this series are presumed lost.
In the first entry in the popular Hazards of Helen series, Helen, the night telegraph operator at Lone Point, relieves Benton, the day operator, several hours ahead of time, because he is caring for his sick child. Receiving an order to sidetrack a freight until the fast mail passes, Helen mounts a horse, takes a short cut, leaps from a fifty foot cliff into a river
In the second entry of the popular Hazards of Helen series, Helen, is temporarily assigned as a telegraph operator at Quarry Depot; bad blood springs up between two men who are seeking Helen's favor, but to whom she has remained impartial.
Helen, the telegrapher at Downing Junction, receives word that an engineer has been accidentally shot by a partridge hunter, and the runaway train will collide with the Eastbound Express. Helen jumps onto a nearby standing locomotive, opens it up full throttle, catches up the Express, warns the engineer of the impending danger
A pair of crooks steal a valuable package, hold up the crew of a freight engine, and compel the engineer to aid their escape. Learning this, Helen climbs into the cab of a locomotive standing on a siding and takes up the chase.
Helen receives a cypher message about a jewel robbery and trails the yeggmen to their lair. Discovered, Helen is bound and gagged and thrown into a box car, but gets loose, and leaps to the ground from the speeding train. The crooks are captured, Helen's pluck wins Billy's heart, but, as usual, she refuses, with an eye on next week's adventure.
When Dick, an aeronaut is wrongly accused of shooting Dan, a trouble-making, quarrelsome cowboy, Helen aids his escape on the outgoing Black Diamond Express.
Brandt, a defaulting cashier, hiding in Lone Point in his effort to throw detectives off his track, cuts the wires of Helen's telephone to prevent her from calling for help, binds and gags her, and boards the outgoing Limited. Freed by Detective Sheridan, the two of them get into a gasoline speeder standing on the sidetrack and pursue the Limited.
Blake, a quarrelsome lineman, and a widower with two daughters, is in love with Helen, but she rejects his advances. Helen spies Myra, Blake's three year old daughter, who has ventured onto the tracks of the oncoming Elwood Express, and just in the nick of time, grasps the girl off the tracks, but in so doing, must leap off a trestle into a river thirty feet below
Rand, a vengeful discharged fireman, tampers with the airbrakes of a large freight locomotive making them useless on the long descent from the summit of Pine Hill to Lone Point the following day. Learning of the impending peril, Helen dashes to a water tower under which the train must pass, climbs out on the spout, leaps onto the roof of one of the cars, and warns the engineer in time. Helen's heroism wins her another offer of marriage, this time from Wadsworth, the freight engineer, but once again she opts for next weeks hazards instead.
Attempting to prevent an armed robbery in the paymaster's office, Helen is bound and gagged, and the thieves escape on a hand car. With her feet still bound by wire, Helen endeavors to pursue on foot, but stumbles and falls across the rails of the track of an oncoming train.
Down and out, Bob, an engineer, drifts into town. His condition excites Helen's sympathy. Using her influence, the girl secures him a position with the railroad. Rankin, Dalmore and Dougherty escape from prison. The men attempt to enter the Hobart Tower, but Helen, seizing a revolver, baffles them.
While Hastings, the engineer of Freight No. 3205 is at lunch- in the Lone Point station, Bobby Heywood, the son of an engineer, climbs into the cab of the engine. Having frequently observed his father start his locomotive, Bobby jerks the throttle open. Helen sees the freight speeding down the track. Remembering that Bobby has been playing about the station, the girl surmises what has occurred.
Two tramps hold up small-town Ferndale's railway station night operator Helen, lock her in a closet, and escape. Later, standing on a bridge over the freight yards, Helen sees the two bandits aboard an outgoing freight and drops onto the roof of the car from above as it crosses underneath. A chase along the roofs of the speeding cars ensues.
Brent, the night operator has been knocked unconscious by a piece of lumber projecting from a passing freight, and has been rendered temporarily insane. Meantime, a furious storm arises, a track walker discovers a washout and wires a warning to Helen, who sets the danger signal for the Limited which is due in ten minutes.
Helen, the operator at Hobart, warns her friend Anna, the operator at Montville, that Tim Hudson, a notorious swindler, is headed for Montville. Anna later brings about Hudson's arrest when the man, posing as a minister, attempts to swindle the people of the town.
Benton, railroad detective, is assigned to run down the crooks who have been breaking into freight cars near Hobart. Helen, the telegraph operator at Hobart, supplies Benton with his first clue. Later in the day, the two see Rand and his band of river pirates rifling a box car.
The smashed corner of a trunk containing counterfeiting paraphernalia reveals to Helen that there is treachery afoot at Lone Point. Detectives capture two of the trio, but one of them gets away, pursued by Helen, across a high railroad trestle. Seventh of the "Hazards of Helen" Railroad Series.
Bob's daughter is sick, so Helen volunteers to take his place on the night run, unaware that the Blackhall gang intends to rob the train which carries a valuable gold shipment. Learning of Helen's peril, Bob and Tracy pursue the train by automobile, arriving just as the hijackers are about to explode a charge of dynamite under the rails.
Lockwood, the old, one-armed flagman at Lone Point, tells Helen and a young soldier of his experiences during the Civil War, and how he lost his arm. The Civil War flashback sequences consist of archive footage from Kalem's Railroad Raiders of '62 (1911), rather than newly filmed footage.
Helen catches two yeggmen who have broken into a freight car which has been detached from a train because of a hot box and are attempting to rifle the safe. The yeggmen escape aboard a passing freight with Helen, who has leaped upon the caboose, in hot pursuit, along with the trainmen.
King attempts to tighten the brake of a freight car standing near the summit of a steep grade at Lone Point. Suddenly, the brake chain snaps and the train commences to roll down hill. Helen sees King's peril, rides to a point just before a curve, crawls hand over hand across a rope which she has stretched across the track, and snatches King from the car moments before the car is dashed to pieces as it leaves the rails of the curve.
A wagon load of powder explodes, destroying the railroad trestle under which it is passing; Helen, knowing that a passenger train is due within a few minutes, climbs aboard a freight car which coasts down a steep grade near the trestle. As it nears the structure, she applies the brakes, leaps to the ground, crawls across the burning trestle
A crooked mine owner attempts to hijack his rival's shipment of ore, but Helen foils his plot by jumping onto the engine and pulling the throttle wide open, eventually exposing the unscrupulous villain.
Sharky, a rival road agent, plots to spoil a trial run to be made on Helen's road that will win a mail contract. He opens a waste valve on the tank of the engine, and, when nearing Lone Point, the water tank runs dry. Helen comes to the rescue by mounting the new gasoline speeder and starting off with the mail for the end of the run.
Jim, determined to ruin a box car brake test, hides inside, removes the flooring, and ruins the brake apparatus. As a result, the box car runs wild, trapping him inside. Before Helen can sidetrack the runaway, it shoots off the track at Elbow curve, overturning as it topples down the embankment. Helen smashes a hole through the side, braves the flames, crawls into the car, rescues Jim and drags him to safety. But her heroism is too late; Jim dies in her arms.
Helen, informed of the danger which menaces an excursion train because another engine on the same track is running wild, mounts a motorcycle and speeds down the track to warn the passengers of their imminent peril. Nearing a river trestle under repair, she hurtles into the river; undaunted, she swims to the opposite bank and flags down the excursion train in the nick of time, causing the engineer to run his train onto a siding just a few moments before the runaway dashes by.
Rita, a telegraph operator, informed that a freight train which is due to pass her station filled with high explosives is about to be overtaken by a passenger train on the same track with a madman at the controls, leaps onto a handcar, which she crashes into the passenger train and thus stops it; she jumps onto the cowcatcher, and into the cab of the engine, where, after a hard struggle with the fiend, she manages to overcome him and sidetrack the passenger train thus preventing disaster.
Helen spotting two jewel robbers sever the telegraph wires and hop onto a passing freight, jumps into a racing auto and takes off in pursuit. In the meantime, the freight's brakes fail, and the train breaks in two. Helen, on a road parallel to the tracks, leaps onto a flat car, runs forward, informs the train crew what has happened, and captures the crooks.
When Helen learns that wiretappers have make a prisoner of Henry, the relief operator, she severs the wire being tapped, boards a freight train, uncouples the engine, and pursues the tappers, who are in a gasoline speeder. She eventually rescues Henry and captures Noyes, the head of the gang, who is then placed under arrest.
Deering and his gang rifle the station safe and gain possession of some valuable gems; Helen seizes the package and throws it into the river. In order to recover the package, a human chain is formed by the railroad men, which Helen climbs down and attempts to catch the package with her feet. Meanwhile, Deering and his men have boarded a launch, and succeed in grabbing both Helen and the package. Morton takes over a freight train, captures the crooks, and rescues Helen and the gems.
Helen, overhearing Tony and his accomplices plotting to derail the pay train and steal its money, is thrown into a cattle car; grabbing a revolver which one of the men has dropped, she shoots the wire controlling the semaphore arm, which then swings up and flashes the danger flag, thus averting disaster in the nick of time.
A quarryman, dismissed because of intoxication, blames Billy, the mail clerk, and seeks revenge. He steals several sticks of dynamite, climbs to the top of the mail crane and ties to the explosives to the mail bag. Helen sees what is taking place, climbs to the arm and unties the dynamite. With the passenger train a short distance away, she hurls the explosive away just as the train approaches.
Helen is captured by two yeggmen who throw her into a refrigerator car; finding a meat hook, she chops her way into the ice chamber and reaches the top of the train in time to avert a collision of two trains.
Under the influence of liquor, Griffin foolishly displays a roll of bills. Wheeler and Walter, yeggmen, see the money and trail the traveler to the station. The men learn the berth he is to occupy. Hastening to a bridge under which the train must pass, they drop to the roof of one of the cars when it appears. Helen, transferred to Burnett, is a passenger on the train. By mistake, Griffin gets into her berth. Because of the man's condition, Helen consents to allow him to keep her berth. The girl takes the one which Griffin's ticket calls for. An hour later, Helen is awakened by a peculiar noise outside the car. Hastily dressing, she sees the window being raised. Wheeler's face appears at the window. The man foils Helen's attempt to shoot him, disarms her and then climbs back to the roof of the car.
The bad blood existing between Reardon and Haley results in a fight in which Reardon is worsted. Reardon, vowing vengeance, climbs back aboard his engine while Haley resumes his station. The fight is witnessed by a number of railroad men. In climbing back to the water tank, Haley stumbles and falls between the cars.
Their demand for money having gone unheeded, Garibaldi and his gang wreck Number One. Howard, who attempts to interfere, is battered into insensibility. The criminals then place a note in the man's pocket warning the railroad officials to heed their demands in the future.
Upon learning that a gang of smugglers are using freight cars to bring Chinamen across the border, the railroad officials order all employees to keep a strict watch for traffic of this nature.
When informed by Helen that the rival railroad proposes to cross the Salt Lake's tracks, McKay, Division Superintendent, rushes a guard of men to Lone Point. This temporarily blocks the rival road's plan, but only until its force of men has been strengthened.
Disguised as car repairmen, Mealius and Denney get aboard the express car, overpower the express messenger and steal a valuable package being forwarded to Arlington. Helen sees the crooks jumping from the car when it stops for water at Lone Point and gives the alarm.
A warm friendship springs up between Quirkly and Helen, when the fireman saves the girl's life. In his desire to be near Helen, Quirkly obtains a room in the house where the girl telegrapher boards. Badger, a crook, stopping in the same house, learns that Quirkly is in the habit of carrying his savings in a bag suspended from his neck. Entering the room with a confederate, Badger chloroforms the fireman and steals the money. Helen hears the noise of the struggle, but comes too late to apprehend the crooks.
Wharton, trailing Red Leary and his gang, learns that the men intend to wreck the Limited. Curley, a fireman, is implicated. The crooks become aware of Wharton's presence and attack him. Helen comes to the detective's rescue with a revolver and captures one of the men.
Bull, Reno and Red make a getaway after holding up the Limited. Helen later sees the men and summons the detectives. The convicts escape from the trap and board a passing freight. Helen also succeeds in getting aboard. The train crew discovers the fugitives. Reno, in charge of the valise containing the loot, throws it into the boxcar ahead.
Borden, who nurses a secret grievance against Helen, awaits an opportunity for revenge. The girl telegrapher receives a message which informs her that the freight of which Easton is conductor, is to wait at Workman until the Fast Mail passes.
Spang, a tramp telegrapher, is knocked down by a freight car while walking up the siding near Lone Point. Helen witnesses the accident and by quick work saves him from being run over. The girl is later transferred to the shop's office and, due to her influence.
Detective Strong is warned that an attempt will be made to free the crooks he is taking to the penitentiary. In spite of his vigilance, the prisoners escape when confederates start a gunfight on the train. Strong and his men scour the countryside for the fugitives.
After robbing the bank at Orlock, Cherry and Newton make their getaway. When on the outskirts of Lone Point, the men cut the telephone wires. Helen, however, learns of the robbery. Never suspecting that the crooks are headed for the station, the girl is taken by surprise when Newton and his pal hold her up.
Dawson, a newcomer to the division, meets Helen while the girl is riding in the freight engine with Star, his engineer. Helen ignores the fireman's offensive stares, knowing that trouble would instantly result, if she reported the matter to Star. The following day, Dawson approaches the girl telegrapher and, seizing her in his arms, kisses her.
Fearing lest Cameron's horse beat the pony he has plunged on, Tony Dorgan orders one of his men to bribe the stableman to drug the animal. Saratoga Johnny tries to carry out Tony's order, but receives a beating at the hands of the irate Cameron employee.
Confronting Helen at the Lone Point Switch Tower, Denning and his pal imprison the girl in a clothes closet and then steal everything of value. In making their getaway, the crooks accidentally upset a lantern and set the tower afire. Helen, by picking the lock in the door with a hairpin, barely escapes death in the flames.
Hume and Frintz, while riding in a boxcar, see a trunk in the unguarded baggage car of a passenger train. By a daring leap from the freight to the passenger, Hume steals the trunk, throws it into one of the boxcars, and then leaps back. The trunk is missed and the loss reported from Helen's station.
Discharged for drinking, Coleman attempts to get even by releasing the brakes on an empty boxcar, to which is coupled a flatcar, allowing them to run wild down the main line on which he knows the president's special is coming. Coleman does not know that his children, Helen and Paul, are playing on the flat car.
Sterling and Ella steal a jewelry salesman's sample bag and make their getaway by boarding a passenger train. Word is flashed ahead to Helen, who in turn notifies Bowring, a railroad detective. The train is flagged.
Disguised as baggage man, Burgess and Whelan board the train to which is coupled the special carrying Nina Mallotte and her theatrical troupe. The thieves plan to steal the actress' gems.
Communicating with his pals outside, Daly informs them as to the date upon which he is to be taken from the jail to State's prison. Kling, the head of the gang, arranges to hold up the train carrying Daly and effect the man's rescue.
The shifting of the dynamite contained in a boxcar causes the latter to be cut from the freight and set out as unsafe. While this is being done, the Jones gang waylays Emerick, a cattleman who has just sold a herd of stock. Detectives are sent after the thieves.
Beaten by Dun and Corson, Trent is hurled unconscious to the tracks. Helen, who witnesses the attack, drags Trent from the rails just in time to save him from death beneath the wheels of an oncoming train. When the tramp revives, he accompanies his rescuer back to the station.
Crossed telephone wires enable Helen to overhear a plot between Joe and Bill, escaped convicts, to join a number of Chinese who are being smuggled into the country in a freight train.
In this episode everything goes wrong. Helen ends up on the rear observation deck of a runaway express train with the door to the inside closed, with the air-brake of the engine damaged, the engine itself full of steam and inaccessible, and the train speeding ahead on the wrong track.
Climbing into a cab of a freight engine, Bobbie Layson, the son of a station pulls the throttle open. The alarm goes out and Helen, stationed at Lone Point, is ordered to derail the runaway and thus prevent it from running head-on into the approaching passenger train. Fearing for his son's life, Layson phones Helen
Tony, a half-breed Mexican is kicked from pillar to post, but he grasps a chance for revenge on society when he peers through the station window and sees Helen, the operator at Lone Point, opening the express company bag containing a valuable shipment to a local rancher.
A fall from a semaphore weakens Wood's mind and when he later disappears circumstances point to suicide. His ghostly appearances make the post known as the "Haunted Station," and Helen is appointed as a last resort after many others have quit.
"The Open Track" is a short action film from the action series of short films "The Hazards of Helen". This is episode 63 from a total of 119 weekly one reel films produced by Kalem. Helen's cleverness exposes a band of counterfeiters who later succeed in turning the tables on the railroad detectives and tying the two men to the cowcatcher of a train which they then start off down the grade. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.
After binding Helen to prevent her from stopping the express train to have it await an armed guard, crooks board the train, disable the messenger and dynamite the safe. Helen later takes a short cut in an auto and overtakes the train, but the crooks leap from the speeding train into her car before she can warn the engineer and train crew.
When the Limited is forced to stop because of an obstruction on the tracks, the passengers alight for a stroll. In the excitement of boarding again one of the passengers loses a handbag containing her jewels and money. Two crooks aboard the train hear of this and at Helen's station they alight.
Apparent carelessness causes Conductor Lawton and his train crew to be laid off for thirty days. A gang of car thieves, pursued by police, jump aboard a freight, and after a stiff combat, succeed in throwing the crew off the speeding train to the ground.
Helen is enjoying a ride on her horse, "Hazard," after her day's work, when news comes that "Red" Purdy and his aides are escaping after making a big haul. When the automobile in which they are escaping breaks down they take to a handcar. Helen pursues them down the track while the Sheriff and his posse set out to head them off on a short cut.
Steve Nelson, a clever crook, arrives at the little station where Helen is operator. He lives quietly at the village's little boarding house preparing for a coup when Helen receives instructions that lead her to suspect Steve.
A college boy's prank imperils the life of the railroad president's son who has worked his way up to engineer in his course that starts "from the bottom." Tied to the engine, the son is speeding on a runaway engine toward the Flicker Creek bridge which has been swept away by the floods.
The smugglers seem in a fair way to escape on a stolen engine when Helen, unhitching a team from a nearby wagon, races down the road towards the railroad bridge from which a rope is hanging directly over the track. Standing astride the two speeding horses Helen leaps to the rope, and swaying in mid-air makes a perilous drop to the stolen engine as it dashes past.
Hanging from a rope over the track, the detective seems certain to plunge to death when the oncoming train splits the knot of the rope which has been tied to a rail and slung over the bridge girder. Helen's presence of mind and nerve in swinging out over the river on the other end of the rope and thus balancing the detective until the train has passed prevents the terrible catastrophe. Later, when pursuing the culprits, Helen once more takes her life in her hands by throwing a lasso from the hand car on which they are pursuing the freight over the brake beam, and then crawling hand over hand to the top of the car.
Dick Benton is making a game attempt to start life all over again, after escaping from prison where he was confined for a crime he did not commit. "Peeler" White, who was really guilty, and who aided Benton to escape without telling the reason for his interest, stumbles across the young man who is now an express messenger. "Peeler" threatens to disclose his knowledge unless Benton aids him in a fake hold-up. The young man pretends to be a willing victim, but really warns the railroad detectives and "Peeler" and his companion find themselves in a trap on the train the following day.
The story is built around the rivalry of two railroads, and the record run that is to decide the awarding of large mail contracts.
Through an accomplice the band of conspirators preying on railroads succeed in having the boxcar loaded with auto tires sidetracked at Lone Point instead of being taken on to its rightful destination. They are getting away with the valuable shipment when Helen takes a hand in the affair. While each of the trio carries a load of tires back to the autos which are in a sheltered spot, Helen hurriedly climbs the side of the boxcar and releasing the brakes the car, with its heavy load, starts down grade at great speed.
The film is directed by James Davis from a story by Edward T. Matlack. In this episode Helen Gibson performs one absolutely breathtaking stunt, which just shows how dangerous it was to act for silent film pioneers, especially for stuntmen and stuntwomen. There is a twist to the plot, and Helen Gibson not only has to save her governor from mortal danger, but also the life of somebody close to her, who has been sentenced to die without guilt.
Following the wreck of the pay-car, it is rifled by a band of conspirators. All but one of the band later succeed in making their escape from the town by automobile, but this one is forced to jump aboard a freight train to which is attached the wreck train and huge crane.
To prevent a three mile journey around the mountain the telegraph wires at the construction camp have been strung over the precipice from the station on the mountain top. The operator is discharged when the superintendent suspects him of treachery and Helen is transferred to the station. Later, after the former operator has enlisted the aid of crooked brokers to use his knowledge in ruining the value of the road's stock, he receives an opportunity to get revenge on the superintendent.
The new superintendent's first order on taking the post eliminates the men whom he terms old, which costs "Pop" Bates his job as Helen's relief operator. His next declaration is that active railroad work is no place for women, and Helen is also dropped from the service. While Helen is breaking the news to Bob Bates, the new superintendent is hustling about the road yard speeding up the work. "Put more snap into your switching," he tells the men. A minute later, while he is making an inspection inside a boxcar with defective air brakes, a switching engine rams the car. The force of the impact, heightened by the recent orders, throws the superintendent to the floor stunned, and starts the car on the down grade. In the few moments it is speeding along the road and there is consternation among the men for a washout down the road means that it is headed to certain destruction.
Billy Warren, timekeeper on the construction job, arouses the enmity of Brent and Easton when he resents their bullying of the other men. Pay day finds the men celebrating in riotous fashion, and Brent in a crazed moment breaks into the station and attacks Helen. Her cries bring Warren, who trounces the bully.
Red Stanley's band has successfully robbed the express car and the members are making good their escape when they come upon Helen and her girl chum riding in the woods. The girls are set upon but they succeed by desperate riding in making their escape temporarily and, when danger seems near again, are saved by the approaching railroad detectives searching for the Stanley band. A running fight results in the capture of one of the band, but Stanley and his chief aide escape. Under cover of darkness, as Helen is working alone in the desolate station, the two enter and bind and gag her.
Trent returns to the throttle too soon after his recovery from illness. On the following day Ruth, his daughter, and Hume plan to elope. Trent, with a new fireman, is suddenly taken with a weak spell and when the fireman becomes panic-stricken there is a scuffle which ends with the fireman thrown to the ground while the fast freight speeds on.
"Red" Byrd and his aides succeed in learning that a large treasure is being shipped on a certain freight car under special guard. They overpower the relief operator at Helen's station and tamper with the signals so that the treasure train stops, while the crew runs ahead to investigate, leaving Spencer alone to guard the treasure.
Burkett, superintendent of the Western Railway, opposes his daughter's friendship for Dick Benton, one of the company's lawyers, favoring the latter's fellow-worker, Guy Warren. Warren succeeds in putting through a scheme which results in Dick's discharge. The lovers plan to elope and enlist the aid of Helen. But Eleanor's father learns of the move and wires ahead to police officials to board her train and arrest her while he follows in his special. By a daring leap from a handcar to the train Helen succeeds in warning Eleanor of her peril, but is too late, and Helen and Dick are forced to stand idly by while Burkett starts on the return trip in his special, carefully guarding Eleanor.
Chilton, a crooked dealer in antiques, decides on a daring scheme to recoup his finances by defrauding the railroad. A car-load of cheap furniture is shipped with a valuation of $40,000 on it. Blanding, the tool of Chilton and his partner, awaits at Lone Point a telegram giving the number of the car.
Circumstances make Helen think that Jack, the engineer and son of the road's auditor, is guilty of the theft of $50 that comes to light through a shortage in her accounts. Gypsy Joe, the real thief, gathers his followers to seek vengeance on the train crew for having thrown him off the train.
The vote stands a tie on the railroad bill that will mean ruin to the Western line should it pass the State Legislature. By getting Senator Brown, who is aboard a liner quarantined in the bay, to the Capitol the day will be saved. The road superintendent takes a daring chance and aboard a motorboat succeeds in smuggling the Senator ashore and to a Western special which speeds off towards the Capitol of the neighboring State.
In a scuffle between the assistant foreman and a discharged employee at the mountain construction camp the latter's revolver is fired, bringing about a dynamite explosion that severely injures many of the men.
Agents of a foreign power are seeking to get possession of the plans of a new aeroplane motor invented by Dick Benton. Under cover of darkness they succeed in their scheme and are escaping in their automobile when it plunges over an embankment near Lone Point.
Jud Hendricks, foreman of the construction camp, is being blackmailed by Gypsy Joe, who knows of a dark page in the Hendricks' past. Hendricks and Tom Rasom are rivals for the favor of Helen, with Tom in the lead. The latter, an engineer, is about to take his train out when he finds Gypsy Joe hiding in a boxcar.
Learning that the driver of the Comet car has been disabled on the eve of the big race, Sinton, a gambler, bets heavily on its rival. But his plans go awry when Gordon, the owner of the Comet car, meets Naroche, a celebrated French driver, and engages him to pilot the racer.
Greggs, returning from abroad with a large consignment of precious stones, thwarts the first attempt of Gentleman Joe and his accomplice to rob him at his hotel, but they follow him aboard the train the when he is alone on the observation platform they attack him, and a struggle ensues in which Greggs is finally thrown to the ground from the speeding train. Helen, riding through the hills in an auto, comes upon him before Joe and his pal can alight from the train, Greggs gives her the diamonds and tells her to speed away and rush help back to take care of his injuries.
Helen, discharged by the superintendent without justification, comes to the rescue when a flat car, loaded with dynamite, is tearing to certain destruction down the grade, bearing the mischievous son of the superintendent.
Escaping after an early morning bank robbery, Gentleman Joe and his pal succeed in boarding a freight train headed toward Lone Point. Fearing rightly that a warning has been sent down the line, they secrete their loot in a box car, and, after noting its number, alight and seek cover until after the pursuit has cooled.
Helen, by a courageous leap from a motorcycle, reaches the burning boxcar in which the detectives are imprisoned and succeeds in applying the brakes in time to bring it to a stop and save them from almost certain death.
The new superintendent scoffs at the men's fear of Engine 3615, and declares that it must be put into service at once. Engineer Kent, a veteran of the road, refuses to take the throttle and is discharged. Dick Benton, a young engineer, is induced to take the engine out and "kill this talk of a hoodoo."
Dick Benton, a young attorney of the railroad, is on his way to the Capitol to deliver evidence involving Riggs in a conspiracy arising out of a fight with the railroad over a franchise. At Lone Point he learns that by leaving the package to be picked up by the express it will reach the Governor sooner than he can bring it on the local.
Stallings' plot to spoil the demonstration of Dick Benton's newly invented safety stop for trains seems certain of success when the locomotive is sent running wild down the tracks. Helen saves the day by climbing out on a wire stretching across the tracks and dropping to the speeding engine.
On a visit to the State Prison with Superintendent Melvin of the construction camp near Lone Point. Helen gains the friendship of Butler, a former telegrapher who had been wrongfully convicted on circumstantial evidence. Butler is soon to be released and Helen promises to aid him.
Bert Morgan and "Squint" Booth are freight agents for rival railroads concerned in getting the contract for hauling the gold ore produced by the Mogul Mountain mine. The contract finally falls to the road employing Morgan upon his promise to have cars in operation over an abandoned spur track within three weeks' time.
Joe, the Wop, employed in the roundhouse near Lone Point is notified that he has been promoted and will take his place that night as a fireman on the local freight. On his way home he stops at the station to tell Helen, the operator, of his good fortune. As Joe starts down the track towards home, Scarlotta, a member of a notorious vendetta that has marked Joe for death, shoots him from ambush. Helen sees Joe fall in the middle of the track and barely succeeds in dragging him to safety out of the path of the limited. Joe's wound is not serious and that night he takes his place as fireman on the freight. Determined to "get" Joe, Scarlotta visits the station where Helen is still at her key and after binding her and locking her in a closet, throws the switch so that the freight will collide with the cars on the siding.
Helen, the telegraph operator at Lone Point, receives a telegram for Sydney Wayne, superintendent of the Graham Gravel plant, advising him that the plant has changed ownership and that Stanton Grey accompanied by his daughter Edith, is on his way to Lone Point to inspect the property. Wayne is startled because he has gambled away the company's money and realizes that his books will not balance. Fortune appears to favor him when Grey is carried into the station unconscious as the result of an automobile accident. He extracts Grey's wallet from his pocket but Cole, the gambler, who has trailed Wayne gets a photograph of him in the act. With the photographic evidence, the gambler tries to blackmail Wayne.
Barstow, a crook, conceives the idea of buying old automobiles, staging "accidents" with them, and settling with the railroad. At the Lone Point crossing one of his machines is hit by the train and the flagman is discharged because it appears that he has been negligent. Helen, the telegraph operatic, gets a day off and starts for the hills on horseback. She meets Duncan, a railroad detective sent to investigate the increasing number of crossing accidents.
Helen, the telegraph operator at the Lone Point Station, shields Miguel, a greaser, under suspicion of having stolen some horses, until the real thieves are caught.
Helen, station agent and telegraph operator at Lone Point, is in despair over a broken sounder when Morley, who has dropped off a passing freight, offers to fix it for her. Recognizing in him a man whose skill points back to happier days, Helen encourages him to tell her his story, promising to get him the position of relief operator if he cares to accept it. Morley's story takes him back several years to the time when he gave up his position as an operator following the death of his wife. He has never seen his little daughter since turning her over to the care of a rich brother.
Rupert Winslow, traffic superintendent of the railroad that employs Helen as operator at Lone Point, receives a telegram stating that his wife, who is ill, will be on the midnight express. He calls in Summers, a veteran brakeman on the passenger run and instructs him to watch over Mrs. Winslow and to sidetrack her sleeper if she requires medical attention.
The Hazards of Helen is an American melodramatic adventure film serial of 119 twelve-minute episodes released between November 7, 1914 and February 24, 1917. Most episodes of this serial are presumed lost.
