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(The O. Winston Link Museum issued the following news release on November 29.)

ROANOKE, Va., — On a cold January night 50 years ago,
free-lance photographer O. Winston Link drove to a Norfolk and Western Railway station in Waynesboro, Va., hoping to capture a passing steam locomotive on film. One of those shots, taken on Jan. 21, 1955, would become the first of Link’s now-famous black and white photographs documenting the last days of steam locomotion in America.

To commemorate this anniversary, the O. Winston Link Museum will re-create “Train No. 2 Arrives at the Waynesboro Station” at the same location Jan. 21. The shoot will begin at 8 p.m. when Norfolk Southern (successor to the N&W Railway) will stop its business car train and passenger cars pulled by new diesel locomotives, allowing amateur and professional photographers alike to create their own versions of the historic photo.

A $20 ticket covers admission to the enclosed photo shoot area and to a 6:30 p.m. lecture and 7:15 reception. The lecture and reception will be held in the nearby Basic United Methodist Fellowship Hall.

The re-creation of the photograph that began Link’s five-year, self-financed project coincides with the O. Winston Link Museum’s first anniversary. The Museum houses the largest collection of the acclaimed 20th century photographer’s work, Link’s photographic equipment, prints not on formal display and N&W Railway artifacts.

Link’s dramatically-lit black and white photographs of powerful steam locomotives and of the towns they passed through attracted critical and popular acclaim in the 1980s, and by the late1990s, plans were being developed to create a museum devoted to his work in Roanoke, where Link shot many of his N&W photographs and the New York native often called his second home.

The Museum’s Jan. 10, 2004, opening in a restored Raymond Loewy-designed N&W passenger station in downtown Roanoke attracted worldwide attention, including coverage in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Vanity Fair magazine and Yahoo.com.

Its educational outreach program has traveled to four states, and one of the Museum’s traveling exhibits is now in Namur, Belgium.

Link’s work has received additional exposure through the sale of posters, audio recordings and other memorabilia available through the Museum’s gift shop and Web site. In addition, seven estate prints limited edition prints made from Link’s original negatives have been sold.

Besides beginning the work that would make him famous, the month of January also represents an ending for Link himself, whom Vanity Fair magazine named “One of Photography’s Grand Masters.” Four years ago on Jan. 30, Link died in a train station in Katonah, N.Y., at the age of 86.

In addition to the Waynesboro re-creation, there will be free admission to the O. Winston Link Museum on Sunday, Jan. 9 in observance of the museum’s first anniversary.

For more information about the O. Winston Link Museum’s anniversary activities and tickets for the Jan. 21 event, call (540) 982-5465 or contact programs@linkmuseum.org.

The O. Winston Link Museum, at 101 Shenandoah Ave., is open Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Admission: Adults $5, seniors $4, children $3. Group discounts and packages are available.

For more information, visit www.linkmuseum.org or call (540) 982-5465.