The Last Steam Railroad in America [Hardcover]

O Winston Link (Author), Thomas H Garver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

From 1955 to 1959, O. Winston Link travelled up and down the Norfolk and Western railroad, taking pictures of the trains, the towns and the people who lived and worked there. This book contains day and night photographs, with a text on the railroad's activities, Link's achievement and his life.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810982013
• ISBN-13: 978-0810982017
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 10.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, November 30, 2000

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Last Steam Railroad in America (Hardcover)

In 1955, photographer Winston Link took note of the disappearance of the steam locomotive from the American scene, and he decided to take quality photos of the last steam railroad left, the Norfolk and Western Railway. Over a period of several years, he took a series of excellent pictures of steam trains in motion. In the beginning, Mr. Link's idea was to take black-and-white photos of locomotives at night, but later he expanded this to trains operating during the day, and he even took some color photos.

This is an excellent book, if you like steam locomotives. In particular the color photos are breathtaking. My favorites were those of the streamlined J class. Great book!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Insightful, November 29, 2000

By 

Ed Faits (Southwick, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Steam Railroad in America (Hardcover)

O. Winston Link transcends the genre of "railroad photography" . His technical brilliance captures a touching portrait of now lost but not forgotten America. He sees steam trains - and rural America in the mid 20th century - from a unique and beautiful perspective.

The text compliments the photography nicely.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rare Masterpiece, December 3, 2000

By 

D. Johnson (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Last Steam Railroad in America (Hardcover)

Link is to his corner of history as Atget was to Paris. He knew what he wanted and went about photographing it his way and created a body of work nobody could anticipate and which nobody will attempt to match. His work should be part of contemporarly art history curriculum, as an example of the best personal statements made with a camera. This book is not about trains but about art. It is perhaps a narrative poem about some trains. There is nothing new about the subject matter and technically the photographs are just as good as they need to be, no more. The same could be said of Walker Evans, Atget, Hine, Nixon and others who have made their marks by their direct personal vision and complete "ownership" of their subjects. If you are a photographer, you should buy the book just to remind you of how far you have to go before you've done anything unique of lasting value. Give this book to a kid with imagination and you may start something. I watched a bunch of 7th graders at a show of Link's prints and they immediately caught on that the work isn't about trains but about dedication to an idea and the art of project management.