Railway Men

Beginning in 1955, O. Winston Link made more than 20 trips over a five-year period to photograph the last steam engines of the Norfolk & Western Railroad. By 1960 he had over 2400 negatives.

Early on he recognized that the one problem taking photos of locomotives was lighting. As he put it, “You can’t move the sun, and you can’t move the tracks, so you have to do something else to better light the engines.”

So he built his own flash equipment. For one photo he detonated 42 flashes at one time.

Besides being gifted in being able to visualize what a night-time shot would look like in the daytime and in devising the equipment he would need to take those shots, he must have been a master salesman.

For the photograph titled, Bringing in the Cows on the Norvel Ryan Farm as Train No. 3 Passes, Link persuaded the Ryans to delay milking until 7:45PM when the Pocohontas would be passing on its way from Norfolk to Columbus. Poor cows!





















For Sometimes the Electricity Fails, he used his convertible and asked a young man if he had a girlfriend who would pose with him. The young couple married a year later.
















Another I especially liked was Hawksbill Creek Swimming Hole. I think that it clearly illustrates how Link uses lighting to turn what would be a rather prosaic scene into a magical one.


















Besides the special exhibition of Link’s photographs, the Wilmington Railroad Museum boasts some rolling stock and memorabilia. The inspection car reminded my Sweetie of being 8 years old and hitching a ride from 16th to 20th street in Paso Robles, CA.