NW 1103, Hot Shot Eastbound, Iaeger, West Virginia, August 2, 1956

From the Getty Museum record

>Since I could only see the headlights of the locomotive in total darkness, I did not know until the flash was fired that I had captured this prize--Class A engine with beautiful smoke with all of it in range!!! O. Link's enthusiasm for steam engines began as a youth in New York City, where he would often visit the rail yards and daydream about riding the trains "through mountains and valleys and rivers and forests." His captivating photograph of a Norfolk and Western train speeding past the Iaeger Drive-In Theater captures this romantic spirit. The photograph also inspires nostalgia for a bygone era, when young people could enjoy a warm summer night in a convertible at a drive-in. In Link's photograph, the steam engine's billowing white smoke dramatically fills the dark sky, maximizing the beauty of this machine at a significant moment in the history of locomotives, when steam engines were being replaced by diesel engines. The airplane on the drive-in's screen conspicuously heralds the emerging form of long-distance travel that nearly entirely replaced passenger trains.