Highlights
"Conversations" Conference
Photo by Henry Koshollek, M.A.
Photos and information about the Center's sixth "Conversations About Photography" are available.
It's Work
Photo © David Plowden
The Center, as a conclusion to its "Representations of Railroad Work" project, has published a 32-page summary with memorable images from all the exhibits, which is available for purchase. It appears in place of an issue of Railroad Heritage. Classic Trains (Summer 2007, page 90) and Railfan & Railroad (June 2007, page 12) featured It's Work in news and reviews.
Photography Awards
Photo by Olaf Haensch, 2008 winner
As a part of its commitment to excellence, the Center has established annual national awards for outstanding contributions to railroad imagery. The next deadline is March 10, 2009. See the 2008 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. 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.
Contents
Railroadheritage.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.