"What a picture I got!"

In January 1955, when photographer O. Winston Link hurried through a commercial assignment so that he could go see Norfolk and Western Train No. 2 on its run from Roanoke to New York, two durable pieces of American technology were nearing the end of the line. Steam engines had been replaced by diesels on every main railroad line but the N&W. And the cumbersome large-format camera was being supplanted by the compact 35mm-type and the "candid" photographs that it made possible. A train buff since childhood, Link spent the next five years making 2,400 photographs, each meticulously planned and composed on his big cameras to document the final days of steam.

Read the rest from The Smithsonian here.

Visit the Link Museum website here.

Thanks John.