Tag Archives: Abbey

Shooting the Diesel That Did it, presented by Kevin Keefe

Tuesday, October 25, 2022
7:00 p.m. (U.S. Central Time), on Zoom

Now Available on YouTube

The debut of Electro-Motive Division’s FT freight locomotive in 1939 and 1940 was a watershed for the railroad industry – the steam locomotive was on its way out. The FT’s first public appearances gave both EMD and the Santa Fe Railway a chance to show off their promotional muscle, and photographs would tell the tale. In a presentation inspired by Wallace W. Abbey’s upcoming Indiana University Press book “The Diesel That Did It,” we’ll look back on that moment when photographers recorded the start of a revolution. Presented by Kevin P. Keefe, co-editor of Abbey’s book along with Martha Abbey Miller. 

Kevin Keefe is the retired vice-president-editorial for Kalmbach Publishing Co. and is a board member of the CRP&A. He served as editor of Trains from 1992 to 2000. As a student at Michigan State, he worked on Pere Marquette steam locomotive no. 1225, and he later authored a book about it.

 

This event is free.

During its 1941 debut run, Santa Fe FT 100 poses at Topeka with historic 2-8-0 No. 2414. Credit: Santa Fe Railway, Kalmbach Media Library.

Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography

Wednesday, December 16, 2020
7:00-8:00 P.M. (U.S. Central), on Cisco Webex

Now Available on YouTube

Kevin Keefe and Scott Lothes, co-writers and editors of the publication Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography (Indiana University Press, 2018) come together to celebrate the life and work of a man who devoted a fifty-year career to the railroad photography community. Keefe and Lothes will present highlights from the book, which drew from Abbey’s collection of 25,000 black-and-white negatives held by the Center.
 
The presentation will chart Abbey’s career documenting the railroad industry. Beginning in the 1940s, Abbey masterfully combined journalistic and artistic vision to transform everyday moments in transportation into magical photographs. A photographer, journalist, historian, and railroad industry executive, he helped people from many different backgrounds understand and appreciate what was often taken for granted: a world of locomotives, passenger trains, big-city terminals, small-town depots, and railroaders. During his lifetime he witnessed and photographed sweeping changes in the railroad industry from the steam era to the era of diesel locomotives and electronic communication.
On a rainy summer day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1952, two boys watch as the Chicago & North Western’s westbound Twin Cities 400 makes its stop at the city’s lakefront depot, near the shore of Lake Michigan. Abbey-03-049-002.