Hell on Wheels - Interview with Executive Producer John Shiban

How did Hell on Wheels come about?
The show was developed by Joe and Tony Gayton. AMC said they were specifically looking for a western, they'd had a lot of success with this genre of programming, they'd had success with Broken Trail and were looking for something else. Joe and Tony pitched it and AMC bought it. I got involved after the pilot; I'd been working on another show for AMC called Breaking Bad and developing a new series, The Voyage.

What's the idea behind the show?
The thing that's interesting to me is that even though it's an epic tale, we are seeing it through the eyes of this one character [Cullen Bohannon played by Anson Mount]. It's not a history lesson and it's surprising how relatable it is. The railroad was the Internet of that period; it changed the world. So people at the front line of that are dealing with issues and greed, just like people now. They had their own Wall Street crash and their own dot-com crash. There's still no law, it's frontier justice. That's a staple of the western and we play with those images in our own way. We are trying to find a realistic take on what we do.

How have you handled the production of the show?
It's an epic show on a basic cable budget. It was produced in Calgary, where they produced Broken Trail and Unforgiven so the horses and costumes are already there. It's a huge tent city and the art department built a train that looks amazing.

Source: full interview @ TBI