O. Winston Link Museum, Art museum in Roanoke, United States.
The O. Winston Link Museum is an art museum in downtown Roanoke, Virginia, dedicated to the photographic work of O. Winston Link, who documented the final years of steam railroading on the Norfolk and Western Railway during the 1950s. The collection features large-format black and white prints showing trains, stations, and the people who lived alongside the rail line.
O. Winston Link began photographing the Norfolk and Western Railway in the late 1950s, just before steam operations came to an end on that line. The museum opened in 2004 inside the railway's former passenger station, so the building itself carries a direct connection to the photographs on display.
Link's photographs show ordinary life in small towns along the Norfolk and Western Railway, one of the last lines still running steam engines at the time. Visitors see families, drive-in movie nights, and everyday scenes that happened to unfold right next to the tracks.
The museum sits on Shenandoah Avenue in downtown Roanoke and is open Tuesday through Saturday. The photographs reward close attention, so setting aside at least a couple of hours makes the visit more worthwhile.
Link worked almost entirely at night and built his own elaborate lighting rigs that could fire hundreds of flash bulbs at once. This approach let him photograph moving trains alongside everyday scenes without stopping either.
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