Our next presentation for Virtual Conversations is “Mikado’s Farewell – China’s Last Steam Railroad,” by Travis Dewitz and Todd Halamka. View it now on YouTube.

Dewitz and Halamka made a two-week winter visit in 2018 to photograph steam locomotives at a remote coal mine railroad in China, located 2700 kilometers northwest of Beijing. Scott Lothes moderates a discussion between them about their trip, photography, and experiences.

Halamka is a practicing architect and founder of Todd Halamka + Partners in downtown Chicago. His focus on railroad photography began in 2011, combining his lifelong love of trains and the outdoors with his fascination for image making.

Dewitz is a photographer based out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He has been published or featured in National Geographic, Trains magazine, Bakken Business Journal, Un-Sung Magazine, Vogue Italia, Cinamagic, Child Model Magazine, International Contemporary Artists Vol. XII, Amtrak brochures, Volume One, and Railfan & Railroad magazine. He is also the author of Blaze Orange – Whitetail Deer Hunting in Wisconsin.

Learn more about Virtual Conversations, the Center’s first-ever online conference.

Our first presentation for Virtual Conversations is “Return to Copper Country: Rediscovering the railroads of Clifton and Morenci, Arizona,” by Scott Lothes. View it now on YouTube.

The copper mining region of far eastern Arizona is home to spectacular railroading and intriguing industrial history. Lothes, the Center’s president and executive director, became fascinated with the area during a college internship in 2000. He recently returned and was pleased to discover that, like a good wine, they have grown even more interesting with time.

Lothes became the Center’s full-time executive director in 2011, after serving on its staff part-time since 2008. In 2013 he succeeded John Gruber as president and editor of the Center’s journal, Railroad Heritage. He is a regular contributor to Trains, Railfan and Railroad, and other railroad publications, with more than fifty bylined articles and some 500 photographs in print.

Learn more about Virtual Conversations, the Center’s first-ever online conference.

Railroads connect us across time and space. And in these unprecedented times, we could all use a few more (socially-distanced) connections.

We hope you will connect with us on Saturday, April 18, when the Center for Railroad Photography & Art hosts our first-ever online conference, Virtual Conversations.

We had planned to host our annual Conversations conference over the weekend of April 17-19 at Lake Forest College, just north of Chicago. On Monday, March 16, we made the difficult decision to cancel that event. But our community still has so many stories to tell and images to share, and digital technology provides us more ways to connect now than ever before. So the show will go on!

Please save the date of April 18. Virtual Conversations is a free event, open to anyone who wishes to join. We will send more details as the day draws closer.

Register to receive email updates, and stay tuned here as well as on Facebook and Instagram.

We are enjoying a time of expansive growth at the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, and we head into the new year heading for new and much larger offices in Madison, Wisconsin. Over the next few weeks, we will be moving out of our three-room suite at 313 Price Place and into an eight-room suite at 1930 Monroe Street. In addition to providing us with the room we need to grow, the move is also something of a homecoming for us. Our original offices were located right down the street at 1914 Monroe. We look forward to returning to our roots while reaching ever higher.

During the move, we ask your patience as we will need extra time to respond to your requests. We look forward to being in touch with you as we settle into our new space, and we hope you will come visit.

Our new address, effective January 17, 2020:

Center for Railroad Photography & Art
1930 Monroe Street, Suite 301
Madison, Wisconsin 53711