First off, I have a love of railroading. Never worked in it, just love trains.
This is a B movie, at best.
But it's fun. It shows an actual historical streamline train. Show footage of the then Boulder Dam during construction. Has that Ralph of the Roundhouse plot ( an old juvenile series about steam railroading.)
Plot is contrived. Acting is flat. Dialog is basic.
But I like simple plots and B movies. Man loves woman, woman loves man, man loves engineering, old man hates newfangled things.
The one thing that bothered me was, one test run, and people wrote it off. That's dumb! That's not how engineering works! And I think a lot of people know this. But in this movie, apparently people think one failure is too many failures, lol.
I suspect the tail end of the movie, with all the impossible near misses will bother people. Just take it for what it is, a B movie ( programmer as some people would call it I guess.)
I was reminded of the fantastic murder on a private car at times, which is equally fantastic, but perhaps a better movie.