NORTHFORK
ABOVE: “Main Line on Main Street, North- fork, West Virginia,” August 29, 1958 (NW1966). LEFT: Unfortunately, a severe flood damaged the old buildings at North Fork in 2001 and they were removed. A portion of one survives; access to the hillside stairway is visible in Link’s photo.
before, the disappearance of mainline steam was gradual and unremarked. Only a few alert photographers and writers noted its passing. The first diesel
locomotives, after all, were
small, black things laboring away out in remote switching yards. Many of the first road units went to work similarly clad in black while skeptics sniffed at their early shortcomings. Nevertheless, lines of cold steam engines soon began to appear on sidings around the coun- try, and America awoke one day in the early
1960s to find it had been
“dieselized.” As far as the railroads were concerned, the steam locomotive was now extinct.
Link had been a railfan since his teens. He and his pals used to take the ferry across the Hudson from New York to watch Jersey Central, the Baltimore & Ohio and the Erie working their busy waterfront terminals. Later, after col- lege, his travels as a commercial pho- tographer took him all over the East Coast, where he also took the opportu- nity to shoot the train traffic wherever he encountered it. One job-related trip in 1946 took him to Port Arthur, La.,
where he shot a Missouri Pacific 4-6-0 working a sulfur loading dock at night, which became his first railroad night shot. In November 1954, he shot a New York Central Hudson in Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station at night. Both shots were outstanding, although the engines in both photographs were standing still when Link opened the shutter and began firing flash bulbs. A few months later, in January 1955, an assignment took him to the Shenan- doah Valley of Virginia. After his day-
time commercial work was completed, Link sought out the Norfolk & Western depot at Waynesboro. The N&W was dieselizing at this time, but their pas- senger trains still ran behind stream- lined K-class 4-8-2s, and Link planned a night shot with the engine standing in the Waynesboro station.
With the approval of the station mas- ter, Link popped a few flashbulbs with the operator standing on the platform pretending to hand up orders. Link was back at the station again on April 14,
SEVEN-MILE FORD
ABOVE: This site is a bit of a mystery. The tracks in Seven Mile Ford run be- hind the church in the photo, but are now in front of the church. LEFT: “Pres- byterian Church, Seven-Mile Ford, Virginia,” December 29, 1957 (NW1639). Ben Bane Delaney, head of public relations for the N&W and a friend of Link’s, and his sister Jean White pose in front of the church.
39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60