Five miles south of Buena Vista, you find the ruins of Gooseneck Dam. Breached by runoff from Hurricane Gloria in 1985, the dam — or, at least some of it — stands forgotten on a back road. The Maury River is still impres- sive during the spring thaw, but the majesty of white water roaring over the dam sill and crashing into the pool be- low is long gone. Link and his assis- tant, George Thom, spent three days here in 1956 planning and setting up for the shot, and catching northbound passenger train No. 2 on the far shore at just the right moment.
In January, 1956, Link pho- tographed northbound K-class steamer No. 127 exiting a steel through-truss bridge at Natural Bridge, Va. In the foreground, just a few feet away, young Frank Collins sits on his suitcase watching the action on the station plat- form. The depot here was quite busy during the tourist season as visitors ar- rived to see the nearby natural bridge and to relax at the big hotel. Today, the N&W steel truss is still in daily use, and the hotel still welcomes visitors. Virginia’s natural bridge survives. The depot and the entire 4-8-2 K-class are long gone.
storming through in the background.
Link
dubbed the shot, “Ghost Town.” Duplicating the shot is easy. After 9:00 p.m., Stanley is still a ghost town, although flash is no longer neces- sary. The storefronts are well lit by street lights. N&W’s Y6s, however, have
been
NATURAL BRIDGE TOP: The depot and the entire 4-8-2 K-class
that Link photographed in 1956 are long gone, though the truss bridge still sees daily use. Below is a Chesapeake & Ohio branch, the river and the James River Valley. ABOVE: “Train No. 2 Arrives in Natural Bridge, Virginia” March 28, 1956 (NW873).
replaced by
Norfolk Southern C44-8s. If you come rolling into Grottoes, Va., the next
town south, with hopes of finding the “new” fire station by the tracks in the familiar Link photo, you will see in- stantly that you are out of luck. It’s been 50 years! There is a new “new” station that has replaced the one in Link’s photo. Down the road at Buena Vista, (Boona Vista to you outsiders!) the same disappointment awaits. The railroad is still a major feature of the town, but the big water tanks that Link photographed are gone.
Link’s “double whammy” shot of the engine on a small bridge outside of Ar- cadia, Va., was among his least likely. The bridge is less than ten feet above the water of North Creek and the two bridge spans together are shorter than the big 4-8-2 passing overhead. Link made a silk purse out of this sow’s ear by lighting the scene from both sides, setting up two cameras, and making exposures of the locomotive, the bridge, a parked car and a boy herding cows at the creek’s edge. The shots were made simultaneously without the flash of ei- ther scene interfering with the other. The bridge continues to carry NS traffic today, on a back road a few miles north of Buchanan. It stands as a testi- mony to Link’s genius. Devoid of picto- rial appeal, the scene probably has not been photographed since Link folded his tripod.
Roanoke is one of the great train- watching spots in the East. Traffic still rolls through town heading east for Norfolk, north for Hagerstown, west to Bristol, Tenn., or through the Narrows into West Virginia and out to Cincin- nati. Link made few exposures in Roanoke aside from some shop photos and some exceptional daylight shots of the traffic on the Blue Ridge. That is, with one exception — Boaz
Siding. Historians pore over maps and charts to find the exact spot at the bot- tom of the Blue Ridge Grade where Link made his night shot, “The Honey Hole,” with the eastbound helper crew waiting to shove coal trains up the hill. The pocket is gone, as is “The Photog- rapher’s Bridge” higher up near Blue
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