Jim Shaughnessy Essential Witness is a comprehensive overview of this well-known image maker's sixty years of activity as a railroad photographer. Starting in the late 1940s, Shaughnessy began documenting in earnest the rapidly changing railroad scene in the northeastern United States. His interests and travels also took him to other areas of the country to document the Rio Grande narrow gauge in Colorado, the UP Big Boys in Wyoming, and various locations in Canada. His timing was perfect: he was there to record the dramatic transition between the steam and diesel eras as well as...

From the late 1940s onward, Wallace W. Abbey masterfully combined journalistic and artistic vision to transform everyday transportation moments into magical photographs. Abbey, a photographer, journalist, historian, and railroad industry executive, helped people from many different backgrounds understand and appreciate what was 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 railroading industry from the steam era to the era of diesel locomotives...