Victor Hand’s Milwaukee Road

A new album from our Victor Hand Collection is available online. This selection features the Milwaukee Road and includes this image of Milwaukee Road diesel locomotive no. 24 hauls eastbound freight train no. 200 across the Columbia River near Beverly, Washington, on September 12, 1979. View the gallery here:
https://railphoto-art.org/collections/victor-hand-collection/milwaukee-road/

Victor Hand Collection Overview

Planned Gift of Victor Hand
Approximately 46,000 images, mostly black-and-white and color negatives, many of the 4×5 and medium format size
Digitization in progress; approximately 25% complete
Portraits and action views of diesel and steam locomotives from the 1950s to 2000s
Extensive coverage of diesel in the United States, extensive coverage of international steam operations in approximately 36 countries, including France, Mexico, Spain, Germany, South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and others

Victor Hand’s New York Central Railroad

A new album from our Victor Hand Collection is available online. This selection features the New York Central and includes this image of New York Central Railroad diesel locomotive no. 1047 hauling southbound freight toward Newberry Junction in Painted Foot, New York, on November 15, 1966. View the gallery here: https://railphoto-art.org/collections/victor-hand-collection/

Victor Hand Collection Overview

Planned Gift of Victor Hand
Approximately 46,000 images, mostly black-and-white and color negatives, many of the 4×5 and medium format size
Digitization in progress; approximately 25% complete
Portraits and action views of diesel and steam locomotives from the 1950s to 2000s
Extensive coverage of diesel in the United States, extensive coverage of international steam operations in approximately 36 countries, including France, Mexico, Spain, Germany, South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and others

Fred Springer’s Ecuadorian Railways

A new album from our Fred M. Springer Collection is available online. Featuring images from Springer’s travels to Ecuador, the album includes this image of Guayaquil-Quito Railway steam locomotive no. 44 ascending with passenger train on La Nariz del Diablo (the Devil’s Nose) near Alausi, Chimborazo, Ecuador. Springer shot this image on July 23, 1988. View the whole album here: https://railphoto-art.org/collections/springer/ecuadorian-railways/

Springer Collection Overview

Gift of Fred and Dale Springer
8,000 B&W negatives
50,000 color slides
1940s to 2000s
Coverage includes six inhabited continents, and especially the southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America

After Promontory: 150 Years of Transcontinental Railroading

After Promontory: One Hundred Fifty Years of Transcontinental Railroading, edited by the Center and published by Indiana University Press in 2019, is part of a major project examining the histories and impacts of all of the nation’s transcontinental railroads. The 10×10-inch hardcover book features 19th-century photographs by some of the most accomplished photographers in the nation’s history—artists such as William Henry Jackson, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, and Carleton E. Watkins. Also included is recent photography from artists who explore the lasting impact the railroads have had on the landscape, both to the benefit and the costs of the region. At stake in all of these images, both period and more contemporary, is not only the railroad itself as a subject, but how photographers of different eras, with different motivations and different sensibilities, have thought of the transcontinental railroads and their legacies.

Expanding on the visual themes in the companion exhibit, the book offers a deeper look at the circumstances, histories, and impacts of the railroads that came to connect the Midwest with the Pacific Coast. Essays by railroad historians Keith L. Bryant, H. Roger Grant, Don Hofsommer, and Maury Klein add context and depth to the book’s 240 photographs. Robert D. Krebs, who served in the executive offices of railroads in all three regions, including as chairman and CEO of the BNSF Railway, wrote the foreword. Photographer Drake Hokanson, in the book’s concluding essay, reflects on photographing the transcontinental railroads then and now, and what these images can teach us.

$60 plus $5 for domestic shipping, hardcover, 10×10 inches, 320 pages, color and b/w

International shipping is available; please inquire by email at info [at] railphoto-art.org

Conference registrations now open

Register now for the Center’s Conversations Transcontinental conference at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art in Provo, Utah, on March 29–30, 2019. The two-day event coincides with the opening of the Center’s new After Promontory exhibition and publication of a 320-page book of the same title. Visit the conference page for more information and to submit your registration.