Highlights
"Conversations" Conference
Photo by Henry Koshollek, M.A.
The Center's eighth "Conversations About Photography" conference will be held April 23-25, 2010, in Lake Forest, Illinois. Photos of the 2009 conference are on the conference page.
Photography Awards
Photo by Brandon Smith, 2010 winner.
As a part of its commitment to excellence, the Center has established annual national awards for outstanding contributions to railroad imagery. See the 2010 winners.
Center for Railroad
Photography & Art
1914 Monroe St.
P.O. Box 259330
Madison, WI 53725-9330
(608) 251-5785 / Email Us!
Journal: Railroad Heritage
Railroad Heritage is a registered trademark of the Center.
Railroad Heritage (ISSN 1530-1559) is published by the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, P.O. Box 259330, Madison, WI 53725-9330. It is mailed to annual donors of $40 or more, of which $10 is reserved for a subscription. Receive your copy with your gift of support today. Institutional or library subscriptions are $50 a year.
Railroad Heritage articles are listed in Kalmbach’s Model Train Magazine Index.
No. 23, 2010, Conversations, Otto Kuhler, David Plowden
Railroad Heritage® 23 features an eight-page profile of Ted Benson and Tom Tayor, California photographers who are among the presenters at the Center’s “Conversations about Photography” conference April 23-25. The issue has a wealth of information about railroad art and photography: industrial designer Otto Kuhler, with one of his watercolors in color on the cover and a story about his efforts to promote streamlined steam locomotives; a color center spread showing a rescued mural at the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen headquarters in Cleveland; David Plowden’s new book and a related exhibition; preservation story; and a list of the Center’s 2009 Donors, a way of saying thank you for gifts received during the year.
No. 22, 2009, Jack Delano and Chicago Union Station
In Railroad Heritage® 22, the Center begins a series, “Faces of Railroading,” about Jack Delano and his portraits of people and railroads in preparation for an exhibition in Chicago. The Union Station workers identified in the issue were a railroad family, and when Delano photographed them in 1943 many of them had been working together in the impressive structure since it opened in 1925. The Center is taking a closer look at their lives to recognize them for their work and honor their descendants. Other highlights of the journal include color and black-and-white photos of the 2009 awards program, plus stories about the Center’s 2009 activities, the 2010 “Conversations about Photography” conference, and profiles of photographer Frank Barry and the designer of the Southern Pacific’s 1937 Daylight passenger train.
Another story about Union Station appears in Railroad Heritage No. 5, 2002 (out of print). It has color photos by Mel Patrick and a review of photography at the station. It is available for download here as a 336KB PDF file.
No. 21, 2009, North American Railroad History in a Nutshell
Railroad Heritage No. 21 is a quick-and-easy illustrated guide called “North American Railroad History in a Nutshell.” It showcases 50 images, 22 in color, each accompanied by a description that explains its importance and how it relates to railroad history. The selection summarizes in 48 pages the growth and change in railroading from the 1850s to today. The illustrations were distilled from more than 1,300 entries on the Center’s Internet archive and web portal, railroadheritage.org, a project supported by the North American Railway Foundation, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As a bonus, the issue includes the story of Lewis W. Hine’s iconic photographic portrait of a locomotive engineer whom he called “monarch of the rail.” The image is placed in the historical contexts of its journalistic and commercial uses, and the engineer is identified as a Pennsylvania Railroad real-life figure.
No. 20, 2009, Walker Evans, American Communities, and the Railroad
Railroad Heritage No. 20 features “Walker Evans, American Communities, and the Railroad” by Tony Reevy, an article based on his presentation at our 2008 conference. Reevy writes that “Evans (1903-75) was one of the most noted and original American photographers of the twentieth century, but has not yet received sufficient recognition for his works that focus on the American railroad.” The issue also has our 2008 photo award winners in color on the cover and center pages from the theme “sense of place.” Entrants to the 2008 award program responded with very high caliber images, resulting in a record number of awards. There’s also a photo-story about William Henry Jackson’s work for the Baltimore & Ohio exhibitions at two world’s fairs, and an announcement of a new inniative at railroadheritage.org.
No. 19, 2008, Ted Rose: The Artist’s Early Photography
Railroad Heritage® No. 19, “Ted Rose: The Artist’s Early Photography,” focuses on the photographic accomplishments of Rose (1940-2002), known mostly for his stunning watercolors but who also was an excellent photographer as a youth and young man. It features 40 photographs, 37 of them by Rose, and one painting, plus essays by Robert Ewing, director emeritus of the Fine Arts Museum of the Museum of New Mexico; Robert Ludwig, who often traveled with Rose to photograph the trains; and John Gruber, president of the Center. Between 1956 and 1962, Rose followed trains and rode the rails in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala. His black-and-white photographs taken during the journeys capture the last days of active steam railroading in America. Their quality also hints at an artistic impulse that was expressed in his painting.
No. 18, 2007, Railroading Journeys
“Railroading Journeys,” Railroad Heritage® No. 18, is a special retrospective issue devoted to the life and times of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg whose books changed the way Americans think about--and look at--railroads and railroading. The 32-page issue has 59 photographs, 52 of them by Beebe or Clegg, some of them never before published. The issue considers their pictures afresh (each had a distinctive style), discusses some of the influences on their work, and defines their legacy. In their years of living in the West, beginning in 1950, Beebe and Clegg produced about thirty books, most of them devoted to railroading. A review in Railfan and Railroad (February 2008, page 56) calls attention to the introduction by Clegg’s sister, Ann Clegg Holloway. Railroad History No. 197 (Fall-Winter 2007) devoted page five to the retrospective, praising its “analysis of composition, framing, and tonal elements” of the photographs by Beebe and Clegg. The Center’s print publication, Railroad Heritage, now is complemented by an Internet archive, railroadheritage.org. You can see eight of the Beebe/Clegg photos at railroadheritage.org., with extensive text. You can obtain a copy of “Railroading Journeys” with an annual gift of at least $40, or buy individual copies for $14.95 (plus $4.50 per order for handling) on the Internet or by U.S. mail.
No. 17, 2007, Women in Railroading
No. 17 is a special issue about women in railroading with Shirley Burman as guest editor.
ContentsRailroadheritage.org, 2
Looking Ahead, 2
Conversations about Photography, 3
WOMEN IN RAILROADING
Where Were the Women? / Shirley Burman, 4
Jobs for Women "Come with a Price" / Doug Riddell, 12
The Mean Old Nontraditional Blues / Linda Grant Niemann, 20
No. 16, 2006
Railroad Heritage No. 16 looks at Glendive, Montana, a municipality where the freight trains still stop to change crews and the railroaders actively participate in the civic life of the town. This story--text by Jeff Brouws, photos by Joel Jensen--is about what many would deem an anachronism in 21st century America, the railroad town.
Contents
Railroad Work Exhibits on Display, 2
Looking Ahead, 2
Rose Program Moves West, 3
What is "Visual Culture and What Does It Have to Do With Railroads / George A. Talbot III and John O. Holzhueter, 4
Workers, Worldwide Win, 8
Ruminations on a Railroad Town: Glendive, Montana / Jeff Brouws and Joel Jensen, 12
Patents Show Diesel Development, 25
Milestones of American Dieselization, 26
More Special Issues
The Center has distributed the proceedings of the conference, "Iron Icon: The Railroad in American Art," as a special 72-page issue of Railroad Heritage (No. 14, 2005). The publication, in cooperation with the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, features the papers given by the nine speakers, accompanyied by 21 striking color and many more black and white images from the presentations. The cover is Willard F. Elms’ Land of the Pueblos (after Villa), about 1949, one of the last images in a Santa Fe poster campaign that for some 50 years featured the southwestern landscape and its native inhabitants. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Foundation funded the symposium, held April 22-23, 2004, at the Barriger Library. This high-quality publication is the largest ever issue of Railroad Heritage. John Stilgoe, a Harvard University professor, describes No. 14 as "a solid scholarly demonstration that railroad-industry advertising rewards close scrutiny as art and that the railroad depicted in non-industry illustration rolls deep into national and regional history and visual culture." Stilgoe is author of Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene (1983).
Another special issue, “Representations of Railroad Work, Past and Present,” (No. 13, 2005) takes a fresh look at the people who made and make trains run: their culture, their skills, and their unseen importance to American life. For this issue, special editor Mark W. Hemphill, former editor of Trains magazine, and a former train dispatcher, brings together with photo editor John Gruber and noted authors, photographers, and historians a previously unseen sensitivity to railroad work. Is railroading “just another job?” No. To the people who do it, railroading is a lifestyle, a brotherhood, a culture with its own language and identity. To the public, railroading is unknown territory. But through photography and art, the obscuring veil can be peeled back. This special issue of Railroad Heritage is not the end product of a new understanding of railroad work, but only the beginning. The North American Railway Foundation provided major funding.