The O. Winston Link Museum is a museum dedicated to the photography of O. Winston Link, the twentieth century railroad photographer widely considered the master of the juxtaposition between steam railroading and rural culture.  He is most noted for his 1950’s photographs of steam locomotives taken at night, lit by numerous flashbulbs. He carefully planned the lighting and the staging of these photos, placing human subjects in many.

Located in downtown Roanoke, Virginia, the museum is situated in a restored Norfolk & Western Railway passenger train station and opened in January 2004. The building is included in the Norfolk and Western Railway Company Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. It currently displays hundreds of photographic prints and has several interactive displays including audio that provide information on Link’s photographic subjects. Also displayed are some of the equipment that Link employed to create his night time photographs.

O. Winston Link

Ogle Winston Link (December 16, 1914 – January 30, 2001), known commonly as O. Winston Link, was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photography and sound recordings of the last days of steam locomotive railroading on the Norfolk & Western in the United States in the late 1950s. A commercial photographer, Link helped establish rail photography as a hobby. He also pioneered night photography, producing several well known examples including Hotshot Eastbound, a photograph of a steam train passing a drive-in movie theater, and Hawksbill Creek Swimming Hole showing a train crossing a bridge above children bathing.

Trained as a civil engineer, photographer O. Winston Link was captivated by the American steam locomotive and its imminent demise, spending the late 1950s documenting its final years before the advent of diesel engine trains. His best-known work, the resulting portfolio of black-and-white photographs captures the last steam trains of the Norfolk & Western Railway line and the small Virginia towns through which they ran—an elegiac portrait of the end of an era. By photographing the trains as seen through a living room window, from the edge of a public pool, or over the tops of cars parked at a drive-in, Link effectively showed how closely interwoven these technological relics were with the landscapes and lives through which they passed. Winston helped establish the ubiquity of rail photography and pioneered the use of night photography significantly.

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Here are some photos of the museum, now within the History Museum of Western Virginia, and an example of his work included for comparison of the location over the years :

Example of O. Winston Link’s work

The scene in 1956

The same scene in 2011