Photographer Joel Jensen’s fascination with steam locomotives grew from a singular event. Driving east into Cheyenne, Wyoming, one morning in the late 1980s, he followed a plume of black smoke to its source—Union Pacific steam locomotive no. 8444 (since renumbered to its original 844), fired up and ready to depart with an excursion train. The sight made such an impression that he changed his travel plans on the spot, dropping everything to photograph the 8444. “From that point on,” he says, “steam became an obsession.”

Over the ensuing two decades, Jensen ranged all over the American West, often sleeping in the back of his pickup truck, seeking operating steam locomotives from UP’s behemoths to diminutive narrow gauge engines. Infused with a deep appreciation for rural America that grew from his father’s penchant for two-lane roads, Jensen’s interests extend far beyond the locomotives to encompass the landscapes they traverse, the industries and communities they serve, and especially the people who keep them running. His photographs are as much a tribute to the crews, shop workers, and volunteers, as they are to the locomotives themselves.

Current and past venues

Steam—An Enduring Legacy: The Railroad Photographs of Joel Jensen has been on long-term display at the Evanston Roundhouse in Evanston, Wyoming, since the spring of 2021. The exhibition debuted at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento in March 2012, when the Center and the Museum co-hosted an opening reception and book signing with Joel. From the summer of 2013 until the spring of 2021, the exhibition was on long-term display at the Nevada State Railroad Museum’s East Ely Depot.