.

My understanding was that you had to be invited into the group by someone already a member who knew your work, either through reputation or having developed a slide trading relationship with them already. Being someone who took slides wasn't enough, you had to be what they considered among the best.

The problem with exclusive, invitational-only groups like this (see also the Lexington Group) is that their exclusivity and "secrecy" tends to eventually doom them, no matter how much good they might do somewhere.

Slide collecting/trading still goes on, and thanks to eBay and the deaths of some "hoarders" we're seeing at-times-seemingly-preposterous prices for individual slides. But he who dies with the most toys is still dead. Unless some provision is made to donate such a collection to an archive or library where they will somehow be seen and used, it's not really of "value."

Looking at the link that Big Jim posted reveals that I've met several of these fellas --- One guy I can't stand, and he for good reason has quite a fan club in these parts. But, that doesn't tell the whole story.

Two of the other guys have helped me in one way or another over the years. Another one stopped in at the BN roundhouse in Denver +/- 35 years ago. He and another photographer traveling with him asked politely if they could take pictures, and they signed the liability waiver forms we gave them. The bosses gave them some coffee and sent for me. (It was standard practice to have me guide photographers when we weren't too busy. The reasoning went: Since you like to take train pictures, and you're not doing anything useful at the moment, how about being a good guy and helping these folks. It made sense to me.)

I spotted power for them as long as the light held out. It was just like the other posts said, they wanted a clean, well lit, uncluttered pose, and then they just held down the motor drives, burning up at least two rolls on every single thing I set up for them. As they were leaving they asked for my mailing address, and offered to send me some shots from that day. I laughed and told them not to bother, that my tastes ran more along the lines of NdeM steam from the sixties. Then I forgot about it, until a little yellow box came in the mail for me a couple months later. It contained three dozen first rate NdeM steam slides.

Everybody has their own take on these things, but if "The World's Greatest Railfans" ever ask me for a favor in the future, I'll gladly do whatever I can to help.

I have an idea of who Sammy's benefactor was, but I won't say the name. He is from NE Ohio, used to advertise in Trains, only ever sold originals, and was an early adapter of high-speed motor drives. He was a teacher and used his Summer breaks to travel way down south of the border. A story goes that he came across the last existing Baldwin Centipede in Mexico in perfect light, set up his camera on a tripod and banged off three rolls of 36 on the roster pose to sell.

Only three rolls ??

Maybe it was more, it's been over 30 years since I heard the story.

Yeah, there are those who still pride themselves on shooting slides and it's not just train types.
A pal of mine really twerked a bunch like that them once, he heard some guys bragging about never going digital and shooting 35MM slides. He pulled out a photo of himself with his Speed Graphic big-format camera. He said none of them said anything for several moments afterward.
Yeah, when it comes to something like that, the more you ask for; the more it's gonna cost.
That almost sounds like a railfan version of these millennials who declare them as 'social media influencers' who then insist on being treated like royalty (and God forbid you even suggest they pay for stuff) for gracing you with their presence.
"Don't you know who we are?" is the battle cry for that type.

Ahhh. A 4x5 Speed Graphic, once the TRUE camera of a serious rail photographer. No motor drive here. It has two shutters (leaf and focal plane) and a dark slide on the film holder. Most lenses were 135mm f4.5 or f4.7. Older Speed Graphics you had to select which shutter opening and which tension to get a shutter speed.

Ever see a shot of a steam engine at speed, seeming to lean forward? That's a Speed Graphic (or Graflex) focal plane shutter moving vertically. Bottom of engine is exposed before top, hence the apparent lean. Each piece of film was exposed at 1/500 but it took longer than that for the shutter opening to go from bottom to top (of the subject)

I checked: you can get 10 4x5 sheets of Kodak T-Max 400 negative film at $39.95 at B&H.

Phil Mulligan

And don't forget to flip the dark slide over when you put it back in so you can tell yourself if that sheet has been exposed or not (there are dimples on one side of the edge of the slide). Did you remember to load both sides of the film carrier? Hopefully so. I only had my Dad's Burke & James to use and never had the pleasure of a Speed Graphic........mld

They DO have a website, for whatever it's worth. http://www.wgrf.info

The only reason I know it exists is because I manage it. But to be honest, I don't know anything about the organization that isn't on that site....

Then there were railroaders who carried medium format folding cameras along on the job for when they saw something interesting.

I don't think they were WGRF material as most worked in agreement jobs (Brotherhood of ...) but they had their own community and traded prints, possibly with the help of Railroad Magazine.

Phil Mulligan

Yeah, but what corner do the notches in the film go when you load that sheet film into the holder? :-)

As a high school senior in 1980, I once shot a school football game using a Speed. Later used a Speed to shoot a few photos on the deck of an aircraft carrier and later shot some Conrail in Ohio on E6 film in the late 1980's using the same Speed my father used to make postcards shots for the Ohio Railway Museum. Never did get a leaning forward photo of N&W 611 that I was happy with on her first excursion career. Taught me just how good those old timers were! I need to shoot images of those Conrail transparencies some day. Yeah, ahh... the Speed Graphic!

This has been a very interesting thread. I wonder how many of the world's greatest traveled the world and not just the US.

60 years ago I started taking train pictures with a Brownie box camera. In the next few years I shot with folding cameras, Kodak Retina 35s, A Rolleiflex, and a Speed Graphic before settling on Pentax SLRs around age 15. Every scrap of film I ever shot is still good today. It can be scanned into any kind of cyber silliness that they want to sell us next, and you still have the original when you get done. That is why these old men shoot slides.

By contrast, anything I've ever recorded electronicly, whether it be audio, still images, or video, whether it's on tape, disc, or some kind of chip, and whether it's analog or digital, has the same problem --- after a few years, they don't support the format anymore. Your masters will last a lot longer than you'll be able to get machines to play them. That's the reason so many serious photographers have gone back to film. That's the reason they still make film. And that's the reason that nice film cameras and lenses in good working order are so hard to find, and getting scarcer and pricier all the time.

Don't get me wrong. Digital certainly has it's place, but archival work isn't it. By the time you young'uns have been at it as long as I have, you'll see what I mean.