‘Hell on Wheels’ season 5 premiere date, details revealed!

Tremendous news for all “Hell on Wheels” fans: The upcoming first half of season 5 is wheeling into town a little earlier than we expected!

It was confirmed on Thursday that the series will return to AMC on Saturday, July 18 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. There are seven episodes airing this summer, and then the final seven are airing in the summer of 2016. While it does bum us out tremendously that there are only 14 episodes left, we’re still also grateful given that when the show first moved to Saturday nights years ago, we automatically assumed the worst. It’s a credit to the fans who stuck with the show and proved that this can be a night with successful quality programming.

AMC clearly thought this date through: In premiering the show on July 18, they can end the first half of season 5 before Labor Day Weekend. Therefore, there will be no tough decision as to whether to air a new episode on one of the toughest weekends of the year for new programming.

One last treat we can offer up today is the official logline, which appropriately lays the groundwork for where we find Cullen Bohannon when the series picks back up:

“In season 5, Cullen Bohannon (Mount) finds himself a stranger in a strange land – the mountain town of Truckee, Calif., home to the Central Pacific Railroad.  This rough railroad town teems with thousands of Chinese workers, foreign in language, culture and traditions.  Despite the challenges of corralling his new workforce, Cullen leads the Herculean effort to tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, sometimes achieving only inches a day in the race to complete the first Transcontinental Railroad.”

We’ll be covering the series extensively all season long (as per usual); we still suggest that you check out our exclusive interview with showrunner John Wirth from last year if you haven’t already, since it is a really extensive look at some of the themes and stories playing out in both the past and present.