O.Winston Link
O. Winston Link (December 16 1914 – January 30 2001) was an American photographer. He is best known for his black and white photography and sound recordings of the last days of steam locomotive railroading in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. A commercial photographer by trade, Winston Link helped establish rail photography as a hobby. His night photography was also pioneering, and produced several very well known examples, one with steam train passing a drive-in movie theater, the other of another train passing children swimming near a bridge.
The rail photography of Winston Link is featured at the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Virginia which opened in January, 2004. The museum is housed in the former passenger station of the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W), the last Class I railroad to covert from steam motive power in 1960. Link's work in the late 1950s was encouraged and facilitated by N&W officials, whose company had long built its own locomotives in the Roanoke Shops and had refined use of steam locomotives in earning it reputation for "precision transportation."
Adjacent to the O.W. Link Museum on Roanoke is the Virginia Museum of Transportation which includes a special pavilion constructed to house the static display of the famous Norfolk & Western J-611 and A-1218 steam locomotives which were operated in excursion service in the 1980s and early 1990s.
See also
- H. Reid (another famous rail photographer to capture last days of steam)
- Norfolk and Western Railway
- Virginian Railway
External links
Categories: 1914 births | 2001 deaths | Important people in rail transport | American photographers