A heavily used but readable copy. All text pages are present and legible. The

A heavily used but readable copy. All text pages are present and legible. The cover and binding may be worn or slightly damaged. May be an older version with a different cover than what is shown in photos. Notes highlighting or minor water damage may be present. "From the library of" labels and missing extras like CDs or codes or dust jackets are possible.

Size: 11x0x11; A light bump to lower corners. In the mid-1950s the Norfolk

Size: 11x0x11; A light bump to lower corners. In the mid-1950s the Norfolk and Western Railway began converting its operations from steam to diesel. Although the railroad ran some of the finest steam locomotives in the world and was a major coal-hauler, it decided to abandon steam. It was the last American railroad to do so. Coincidentally with the N&W decision, photographer O. Winston Link began to pursue a decade-old vision of photographing steam railroading at night using synchronized flash. A chance assignment in Virginia brought him to the N&W and for the next five years Link traveled up and down its divisions photographing the trains, the towns, and the people who worked on the railroad and lived beside it. Winston Link published many of his fine N&W images in his first book, Steam, Steel & Stars, a classic of its kind. But many other of his splendid photographs did not appear in that book. Published here are striking portraits of the workers of the railroad, powerful images of the double-headed engine link-ups that pushed long coal trains up the Blue Ridge, and pictures along the length of the Abingdon branch, on which a single combined freight and passenger train ran only during daylight hours. These include some of his most charming scenes of the rural life in Virginia and North Carolina towns served by the N&W.