The film's distribution was stopped by the Production company, July 1935, as the Reich's Railway Service was upset with the emphasis given to the history of railways (namely, French and British inventors), and aesthetic options - fast rhythm, superimposed images, and one spinning-wheel camera effect judged detrimental to railway customers; parallel of the Engineer's love for the machine and the sexual act, after a scene in which the pieces of equipment are detailed in terms of the human body. Despite Leni Riefenstahl, who liked the film very much, convinced Joseph Goebbels to view the film in a private screening, in October 1935, the Reich's Minister for Propaganda did not change the ban, writing in his diary that it was a bad film, which had caused too much stir.
The film was commissioned by the Reich's Railway Services, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first German railroad, the line Nürnberg-Fürth (1835). The (working) replica of the 1906 steam train cost 18 000 Goldmark (equivalent to 250 000 Euro in 2006). The scenes with the steam train running on tracks, as well as the scenes with replicas of historical engines dating to the 17th century were filmed on the Museum Island (Munich).
Because of this film, the director Willy Zielke's name was not included in the films he was working in with Leni Riefenstahl, and he was subsequently interned in a psychiatric hospital.