Many of the actors showcased in The Railroad Porter were recognizable faces in days of black vaudeville.
Lottie Grady, who was a former member of the Pekin stock company, played the wife in the film.
The plot of The Railroad Porter revolves around a wife who, after not seeing her husband come home at his regular time, assumes that she has been temporarily abandoned.
The waiter, in turn, pulls out his own gun, and a commotion ensues in which nobody gets hurt and everything ends happily.
"[7] When The Railroad Porter was reviewed by other black journalists, Foster got commended for showing black life as normal, and not displaying "the race in a ridiculous light".