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Southwestern Virginia, 1955 — A man drives into a rural town, drawing a crowd as he steps out of his Buick convertible and unloads large cameras from a platform that’s replaced his backseat. When he speaks, people are fascinated by his Brooklyn accent — and his explanation of what he’s doing in their town. He’s come to photograph the final days of Norfolk & Western Railway’s (N&W) steam locomotive operation, a business that defines the community, and is likely the reason it was built.

During the next five years, this man will make 17 trips to the N&W line, taking 2,400 images — indelible prints that now can be seen at the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Va., which opened last month.

The museum offers more than just walls to hang the late Winston Link’s famous photographs. Located in the town that used to serve as N&W’s headquarters — and where Norfolk Southern Railway has a major presence today — the building is a restored N&W passenger station.

“It really sets his photos in context,” says museum curator and and art historian Tom Garver. “Finally, you can see his work in the breadth and depth it deserves. It really gives you an idea of what this man did.”

Labor of love. Link was trained as a civil engineer but pursued a career in commercial photography. The N&W project stands out as Link’s only personal labor of love during his 40-year career. Link pursued the project after learning N&W was converting its steam-powered locomotives to diesel — the last major railroad to do so. He didn’t get paid for any of the pictures he took; all he wanted from N&W was permission to photograph the railroad. The project cost $125,000 in today’s dollars (more than $20,000 in the 1950s), but Link saw it as a small price to pay for creative freedom.

“Back then, photography wasn’t regarded as a real art form, so clients called commercial photographers and said, ‘shoot this and send me the prints,’ and the client owned you,” says Garver. “In this case, Winston was his own client. He could create something for himself that was not dictated by someone else.”

Winston hoped his work someday would be appreciated, but at the time people weren’t interested in photos of a vanishing machine. Today, it’s a different story.

“People perceive the historical railroad through Winston’s photographs,” he says. “Winston knew how to take what many people would think of as a greasy old machine and make it appealing, and that’s because his photographs are so often not centered on the railroad.”
Instead, most of Link’s photographs focus on life around the railroad. In some shots, the N&W
locomotive serves as the backdrop to people living their everyday lives — farming the fields, splashing around at a swimming hole, visiting on a porch or watching a drive-in movie. In others, the locomotive is seen through a window, or as barely a puff of smoke.

“His particular niche was showing the railroad as the agent that held life together in many of these small towns,” says Garver. “It’s there as the background for the ‘good life’ in America — the idea that, ‘Here’s a place where people are enjoying life.’”

End of an era. N&W, and now NS, are depicted in a visual legacy documenting the end of the steam locomotive era for the railroad and its workers. NS officials realize that if not for Link’s project — which also captured N&W employees — an important part of their railroad’s history would be lost forever. That’s part of the reason why the Class I’s leaders wanted to contribute to the museum. Between a grant from the NS Foundation and employee contributions, NS donated $700,000 to the $6 million museum.

“Winston’s work is a chronicle of the people who worked for the [N&W],” says Kathryn McQuade, NS senior vice president of finance and head of the NS Foundation. “The railroad is really its people, and he was very kind in the way he showed our employees and captured their love of the railroad.”

Once N&W retired the steam locomotives, many employees went with them; diesel locomotives were less labor-intensive, so fewer workers were needed to operate them, says Garver. Many of the rural towns along N&W’s mainline also suffered as locomotive maintenance shops and coal mines closed.

Although some of those towns no longer exist, they come back to life in Link’s snapshots, turning the photographs into still-life works of art.