(Source: The Atlantic, October 4, 2012)
Steam engines are mythic beasts — massive, belching beasts that, in the 1950s, were on their way to becoming extinct. In 1946, steam locomotives moved 78 percent of American rail-freight traffic. By 1951, that number fell to 31, and by 1959, it was all but gone — less than one percent. But before these great machines totally died out, they were visited by O. Winston Link, one of the greatest railroad photographers of all time, whose work along the N&W is collected in a new book O. Winston Link: Life Along the Line, with accompanying text by rail historian Tony Reevey. Link’s photographs are recognized for their cinematic lighting, their ability to tell a whole story in a single image, and, often, their nighttime settings, a few examples of which are selected below.
Full story: The Atlantic