They make a lot of good storytelling choices in this; I particularly like how the railroad boss (the one in the steam engine) is literally faceless. There's no way they'd do that these days, now that corporations are people.
I can't find any scenes from it on Youtube but if you ever catch the movie "Tall Tale" it's another Disney film that sort of got forgotten about, but which made a live action version of John Henry as well as Pecos Bill. Really well done family film.
The animation to this was gorgeous! Was it part of a series??