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Today's picture features Green Cove Station, one of the most popular
stops on the
Virginia Creeper Trail. Back in the days when the Virginia Creeper
steamed its way up and down the Abingdon Branch of the Norfolk & Western
Railroad between Abingdon,
Virginia and the North Carolina line, there were several train stations along the
way where passengers could get on or off the train. The Green Cove Station
was one of the busiest on the line.
In 1955, New York photographer O. Winston Link began what would become a five
year personal mission of photographing Norfolk & Western steam locomotives. Over the course
of those five years, he made at least 20 trips (spending at least 10 days each
time) to various N&W train stations
capturing stunning stop-motion images of the trains as they pulled into the
stations - and most of those images were taken at night using a complex array of
flashbulbs of his own design synchronized with his camera's shutter!
In
October 1956, Green Cove Station became an icon of the steam locomotive era when
Link took the now world-famous photo "'Maud' Bows To The
Virginia Creeper".
This wonderful photo was featured in the 1987 publication "Steam,
Steel, & Stars" as well as the 1995 classic "The Last Steam Railroad In
America". It also hangs on the walls of countless homes and businesses
all across America!
The super-talented O. Winston Link passed away in 2001 at the age of 86.
The lonesome whistle of the Virginia Creeper no longer echoes through the
hills and valleys of southwestern Virginia, but historic Green Cove Station is
still in use today - by the U.S. Forest Service as a popular rest stop on the
heavily-used Virginia Creeper trail.
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