About This Site:
Name: Samuel Leonard Drukman.
Occupation: Law School Student.
Prior Education: M.A. in U.S. History and History of Technology from the University of Delaware.
Passion: The Romance of Railroading, found worldwide wherever steel wheels roll on steel rails.
Home Base: The Northeastern United States.
A dedicated railroad traveler
since birth, I know of no more satisfying way of relating to the world
than viewing it through the window of a railroad coach. Neither barreling
down the Interstate at 75 miles per hour nor squinting into the porthole
of an airliner at 30,000 feet above sea level offer the weary traveler
such a stunning, rolling panorama, such peace of spirit and relaxation
of body, such a sense of the vastness of our planet and of the distances
between people and places, as can be found only on a gently speeding passenger
train. The windows of American passenger trains are like portals through
which one can glimpse the nation's very soul. More than 170 years of history
are rolled into a slightly blurred montage of receding riverside vistas,
decaying urban wastelands, industrial zones packed with freight cars, and
magnificent downtown terminals. Through the great American landscape, the
railroad runs like a bright steel thread, connecting much more than cities
and towns with each other.
But for a long time the railroad
for me remained just that, a satisfying mode of transportation, a good
way to see the country. When I was young and learned to handle a photographic
camera, I never thought that I would someday spend hours on end photographing
railroad scenes. The rail photography bug caught up with me in college,
when, as an aspiring student of American history, I realized how much railroads
have shaped the nation which I was studying. In surprisingly many ways,
to understand American railroads is to understand the American character.
In my senior year, I began collecting railroad images, and soon after set
out to make them myself. What started out as a minor aesthetic pursuit
has turned, over some years, into a kind of gentle love affair. The images
displayed on this site are all souvenirs of this romance, my passion for
the American railroad landscape, and ultimately, for the diverse, hard-working,
baffling, vast land which it traverses.
I hope you enjoy my photo
gallery, and come back to see new images.
Sam.
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