Newpaper article from the Arizona Republic August 23,1987
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'Artist' cherishes link with the past
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Surrealistic images stop locomotives in their tracks
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by Robert Barr
Associated Press
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  New York - Steam Locomotives are not subtle things,  and that's 
why O. Winston Link loves them.
  "The  steam  engine is alive;  it's almost a human being,"  the 
photographer  said recently.  "It has many sounds,  and from  the 
sound  it  makes you can tell what its ailment is and  what  it's 
doing,  whether  it's  going fast or struggling or  just  sitting 
still, pumping air."
  Steam locomotives assaulted the senses with their noise,  their 
pollution, their heat and immense size.
  In Link's nighttime photographs,  however,  the locomotives  of 
the Norfolk & Western Railroad often hover in the background of a 
down-home  scene:  a  couple  standing on a  porch,  kids  buying 
gasoline or swimming in a river.
  In   other   scenes   the   locomotives   intrude,    sometimes 
disturbingly.  One  such picture frames an approaching  passenger 
train within a signboard that announces the location: Solitude.
  "I  did that all by myself,  and I wanted to get out  of  there 
fast.  It  had  a  real weird,  lonely sinister feeling  in  that 
place," Link said. "There was nothing there at all."
  The   image  is  as  unsettling  as  surrealist  painter   Rene 
Margritte's 'Time Transfixed',  in which a steam locomotive flies 
out  of  a fireplace into a living  room.  Indeed,  many  of  the 
nighttime  photographs,  bathed  in  intense,  artificial  light, 
recall Mgritte's 'The Empire of Lights', a series of night scenes 
under bright daylight skies.
  Link, 76, denies being influenced by the surrealists, or anyone 
else.
  "One of the things they found out that suprised them in England 
when I was there was that I never studied art,  I never looked at 
any art books, I never studied under any other photographer and I 
didn't know what the hell anybody was doing in photography. I was 
just doing my own," he said.
  Of the photgraphers who have chased locomotives, Link is one of 
the  few  to  secure a place as an artist.  A copy of  'Hot  Shot 
Eastbound'  is owned by the Museum of Modern Art,  and  he  sells 
prints of it for $1,000 each.  The picture was made at a drive-in 
theater,  with  two lovebirds in a convertible in the  foreground 
watching  an  airplane on the screen while a freight train  roars 
past.
  "Everything that's difficult in photography is there: depth  of 
field, darkness, motion," he said.
  His  best  work  was recently collected in  'Steam,  Steel  and 
Stars' (Harry N.  Abrams,  $35), bringing his pictures within the 
budget of those who can't afford 'Hot Shot Eastbound' or $500 for 
any of his other prints.
  The  most difficult pictures took days to set up.  Link had  to 
see the picture in his mind,  then calculate the intensity of the 
flashbulbs and diagram their placement.
  "There were very few failures; I always went back and corrected 
them  and  got  the picture.  I had  three  cameras  (two  4-by-5 
Graphic-View  cameras and one Speed Graphic) synchronized,  and I 
could handle a mile of wire and 60 flashbulbs."
  He  spent  six days setting up a shot  that  required  carrying 
heavy equipment across a river and stringing lights in trees.
  "It's  a  beautiful sight when that flash goes off,"  he  said. 
"The whole world lights up."
  Link  received  extraordinary co-operation from the  Norfolk  & 
Western,  the  last major railroad to abandon steam.  Dispatchers 
would  slow trains so Link had time to  replace  flashbulbs.  The 
coal-hauling  railroad had only one restriction:  no pictures  of 
black smoke, because black smoke meant coal was being wasted.
  He  once  flashed  his  bulbs on a passenger  engine  that  was 
belching  black  smoke.  He called a dispatcher,  the  train  was 
stopped and backed up,  and he reshot it,  delaying the train  30 
minutes.
  "Norfolk  &  Western was ideal," Link said.  "It  went  through 
interesting country, and they had beautiful locomotives. ... They 
gave  me  450 engines to work with and 2,500 miles of  track  and 
about 20,000 employees."
  The project ended in May 1960 when the railroad stopped running 
steam engines.
  He was fond of the 110-mile branch line from Abington,  Va., to 
West Jefferson, N.C., which since has been abandonded.
  "Every  turn  was another vista.  And you couldn't  stop:  Gee, 
let's see what's around the next one," he said.
  "You kept walking and walking - you couldn't get in by  car.  I 
went  through  forests  of mountain laurel and  rhododendron  and 
streams;  they have 105 bridges in 55 miles.  The water was clean 
and fresh,  you could drink it.  It went through national forests 
and farmland.
  "It was a joy, the whole thing was a joy, I loved it."
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Accompanying  the  article is a black and white photograph  of  a 
couple  standing on the porch of their home,  with a N&W class  J 
Northern passing in the background pulling a passenger train. The 
porch  is white with gingerbread decoration of the Victorian  era 
feel.  The  lawn of the house is seperated from the  railroad  by 
a fence and small farm field.  The photograph was taken in winter 
or early spring as the couple is dressed with coats and hats  and 
the field looks like it has been plowed under.
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For  additional  reading  try a look at the Fall  1976  issue  of 
Railfan  for an article entitled "Master of the Night" about  Mr. 
Link and his unique style of night photography.
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Jon Hochstetter September 7, 1987