Where is the cast of Hell on Wheels now? Cullen Bohannon traded the railroad for the Enterprise
Hell on Wheels ran for five seasons and 57 episodes on AMC from 2011 to 2016, following the mercenaries, laborers, and schemers building the Union Pacific's transcontinental railroad. Nearly a decade after the final spike, its cast has scattered in some genuinely surprising directions.
One of them now commands a starship. Here's where everyone ended up.
From the railroad to the Enterprise
Anson Mount, who played vengeance-driven ex-Confederate Cullen Bohannon in all five seasons, made the strangest leap of all. After a stint as Black Bolt in Marvel 's Inhumans in 2017, he joined Star Trek: Discovery as Captain Christopher Pike for its second season in 2019 — and fans loved him so much they petitioned for a spin-off. They got one: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds launched in 2022 with Mount in the captain's chair of the USS Enterprise. Season 3 arrived in 2025, and the series is set to wrap with a shortened fifth season.
When it comes to trading in a locomotive, a starship isn't a bad upgrade.
The rest of the crew
- Colm Meaney (Thomas "Doc" Durant) — here's the joke: Meaney had already logged years aboard the Enterprise as Chief O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine before he ever laid a rail. Since Hell on Wheels, he's played Martin McGuinness in The Journey (2016) and turned up in Gangs of London and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- Common (Elam Ferguson) — won the Best Original Song Oscar for "Glory" from Selma in 2015 while still on the show. He's since fought Keanu Reeves in John Wick: Chapter 2 and played the coldly loyal Robert Sims across Apple TV+ 's Silo.
- Dominique McElligott (Lily Bell) — went from House of Cards, as First Lady hopeful Hannah Conway, to superhero fame as Queen Maeve in The Boys from 2019 to 2022.
- Christopher Heyerdahl (The Swede) — the show's unforgettable villain kept working steadily in genre TV, most visibly as the ancient vampire Sam in Van Helsing.
Life after the last spike
Mount hasn't only been flying the Enterprise. He's also worked as an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University, teaching audition technique to graduate acting students — a long way from Hell on Wheels' mud and gunpowder.
He's stayed sentimental about the show, too. The series filmed all five seasons in and around Calgary, Alberta, and when it wrapped, Mount posted a public thank-you letter to the city and told the Calgary Eyeopener in 2016:
"I'm from a small town in Tennessee and I really do appreciate an ease of life and a hospitality that goes with that."
He even claimed the city's cuisine per capita rivals New Orleans. High praise from a Tennessean.
Is a reunion ever happening?
No revival has ever been announced, and the story doesn't exactly demand one — the railroad got built, after all. But with Mount and Meaney both carrying Star Trek credentials, there's always a chance the two old rivals cross paths again somewhere in the galaxy.