The Iron Horse was John Ford´s 50th film and remains his most celebrated of the silent era. Its theme of enterprise and achievement, its open-air locations and setting in a vigorous and pioneering past proved just the subject to stimulate the young director´s talent. The sheer scale of the film surpassed all other Westerns of the silent era, and established Ford as one of the leading directors in the industry.
The film combines a conventional tale of double-dealing, vengeance and romance with a poetic sense of history, and an epic theme - uniting a nation by building a transcontinental railroad, and a great man´s dream realised by the courage, skill and labour of ordinary folk..