Earlier this year, President Obama announced $8 billion in stimulus money to revitalize the nation’s long-neglected rail system and introduce high-speed commuter rail in several highly trafficked corridors across the country. $160 million was earmarked to improve the rail line running from New Haven, Conn. to northern Vermont, and within two years railroad stations long shuttered will again be welcoming passengers for the first time in decades.
This Thursday evening, Sept. 9, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center will present a lecture, The Demise and Return of Passenger Train Service in America. It will be accompanied by a visual history of passenger train service in the U.S. and Canada. It will be presented by Carl Fowler, vice president of Rail Travel Center and member of the Vermont Rail Council, and Christopher Parker, executive director of Vermont Rail Action Network.
Also at the museum through October 24 is an exhibition of O. Winston Link’s rail photography. In the 1950s, the photographer set out to document the last days of rail service in America. Though he intended his images to act as documentation and preservation for a bygone era, Ken Johnson of the New York Times has observed, “The truth is that Link’s train pictures were not products of chance but of elaborate planning and ingenious stagecraft. His process was more like a movie director’s than a photojournalist’s.”
