Digital Collections

Santa Fe No. 3760 4-8-4, second section, train 78 at San Diego Depot

Richard Steinheimer Photograph Collection

Santa Fe No. 3760 4-8-4, second section, train 78 at San Diego Depot, ca, 1952-1953

Santa Fe No. 56 pauses at the Mojave Depot on its eastward run

Santa Fe No. 56 pauses at
the Mojave Depot on its
eastward run
A group of Los Angeles newsboys on a field trip to the San Diego Zoo

A group of Los Angeles
newsboys on a field trip
to the San Diego Zoo
Denver & Rio Grand Western No. 1405 and a 3600-class pushing Carbon County Coal cars at Castle Gate, UT is passed by an e/b F3

[Denver & Rio Grand
Western No. 1405]
Southern Pacific No. 3625 helper crew

Southern Pacific No. 3625
helper crew
Santa Fe No. 3759 4-8-4, a ''Race Track Special''

Santa Fe No. 3759 4-8-4,
a ''Race Track Special''
2 Santa Fe No. 3758, 3759 4-8-4 wait at Santa Fe San Diego Station

Santa Fe No. 3758, 3759
4-8-4 wait at Santa Fe
San Diego Station

About the Collection

Holding library: DeGolyer Library

View more collections held by DeGolyer Library

Overview

Spanish Fork Canyon- D&RGW Coal Train, five degrees below zero

Richard Steinheimer (1929-2011) was a pioneer in railroad photography. He documented American railroad’s heyday and the transition from steam locomotives to diesel. Steinheimer’s work did not just consist of common locomotive mug shots. His photography was highly artistic and creative, still records of time and place. Called the "Ansel Adams of railroad photography" he was known for taking pictures at night, in bad weather, and from the top of moving trains. He had a particular fondness for the American West, and many of his images place trains in that untamed landscape. Steinheimer’s work has been published in Trains Magazine, Railfan, Locomotive and Railway Preservation, and Vintage Rail, and in more than seventy books. From 1948 through 2001, Trains Magazine published more than 400 of Steinheimer’s photographs.

Collection Materials

The Steinheimer collection at the DeGolyer Library spans the period from early work in 1946 to 1970 and includes many photographic prints and approximately 14,000 negatives.

Related Collections

The DeGolyer Library has several rare railroad related accessions, including Alexander Gardner’s 1867 portfolio, Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad (Route of the 35th Parallel), which is one of only four known copies of this early, significant western landscape project. There are also major collections of works by William Henry Jackson, Andrew Russell, George Barnard, Carleton Watkins, Charles Roscoe Savage and Robert Benecke as well as by photographers working in Mexico, Abel Briquet and Charles B. Waite among others. Digital copies of many of these items can be found in related digital collections from the DeGolyer Library, which are developed around geographical boundaries, including:

Digital Collections Guidelines and Procedures

Items in SMU Libraries Digital Collections are digitized following the nCDS Digitization Guidelines and Procedures. Digital collections are created under the guidelines of the Digital Collections Workflow and Metadata Guidelines, or through specialized metadata profiles tailored for the collection.

Usage

Copyright usage terms vary throughout the collection. Each item contains information about usage terms. If SMU does not have the right to publish the item on the Internet, only the item's metadata will be available and the digitized object will be available on a restricted access basis. Such items may only be viewed on campus. When items are available for use, please cite DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. A high-quality version of these files may be obtained for a fee by contacting degolyer@smu.edu.

Contact Info

For more information about the collection, please contact degolyer@smu.edu.