Well I wouldn't go so far as to say he was the greatest rail photographer by any stretch. He did do some outstanding work both with photos and audio. His night photography might be considered the BEST, but overall, I would say thats a stretch.
Being a longtime native of Norfolk & Western Country(we live on the western end of the old N&W), my first experience with Link material was a little booklet Link made for the N&W called "Night Trick". The station agent here in Batavia gave one to my dad, who was always down there photographing and hanging out with the kids.
There is a great book out called "Steam, Steel, and Stars" which was the second hardback book he put out. Its an awesome book, that would please anyone worth their salt calling themselves a steam fan, let alone a photography fan.
His night photography was his foremost accomplishment, but he also did quite a few daylight shots, which were quite nice, and for a time few knew of his audio recordings, which are now also quite famous. As the article pointed out it was a difficult feat to record steam sounds in the 1950's. There were others that were pioneers in the field as well, such as Hal Lewis, and Elwin Purrington. These guys did audio recordings in the mid-late 1950's, and had to do a lot of it on-the-fly. We purchased a lot of Purringtons stuff, on the DM&IR, and Canadian Stuff. He had a lot of recorder malfunctions, and other problems, but also got a lot of neat stuff especially at night.
There are two favorites of mine where Link recordings are concerned. One is the Christmas bells at Rural Retreat(or was it Max Meadows) with the passenger train, and the other was on a record where he was riding in a caboose tucked right behind a class A (2-6-6-4) westbound from Crewe to Ronaoke, VA. I think the engine was 1238. He narrated as he went along which made it unique, and you really got the sense of being there. The cut ended with 1238 stalling on the east side of Blue Ridge grade, and a helper was going to be called assist the train. The only other recording I ever heard that was narrated was one from South Africa. In a typical South African, or was it British voice, the narrator would set-up the cut then you would listen to it.
One flowery set-up went something like this.
"Thundering down the moonlit rails, class 25NC number 3404 breaks the silence of the night as it passes our location, blah,blah, blah!!!"
Links narration was unique in that it was a running narration on this one record. It was nice that N&W embraced Link, and allowed him so much authority. There was one instance where he literally went to the station agent, and had them send a message to the passenger train that just went by his location. Since the engine had black smoke, and that was forbidden in company photos, Link told them to back the train up and go by again. Can you imagine stopping a regular passenger train for "Take 2"!!! They got it with white smoke the next shot!!! I think this was Max Meadows, VA on the Bristol line.
Greg
