Dynein is a molecular motor that is involved in retrograde axonal transport, but the mechanism by which it reaches distal axonal locations is incompletely understood. Here, the authors used live cell imaging techniques in the mouse brain and found that dynein undergoes anterograde transport as a complex with kinesin 1 that is attached to microtubules. However, the complex was unstable, and transient periods of dynein transport were interspersed with periods in which dynein disassembled from the transport complex and microtubules.