This more recent television series dramatizes the Hell on Wheels towns, the story of Thomas Durant scheming his way toward Promontory Point, and focuses on a Confederate soldier turned foreman of the Union Pacific.

This PBS take on the transcontinental railroad brings ample detail and great archival material, along with the commentary of some of our best railroad historians.

This is the earlier (and lesser) of two PBS American Experience films on the transcontinental railroad. It's still worth viewing, however, for a general overview of the story in an entertaining package.

Don't look to this one for the real story. The real West was won or lost depending on whom you ask. Like Union Pacific, How the West Was Won is best viewed as something of a cultural artifact, a high-dollar, star-studded romantic epic inspired by a Life magazine series of the same name.

This is the Hollywood version: The most famous director of American epics, Cecil B. DeMille, takes on the railroad to the West. The film adopts a popular novel from the 1930s and presents a love triangle on the tracks in 1869. Taken with a dose of reality, though, DeMille's picture is a black and white testament to Hollywood's love of the West and its legends.