Richard Steinheimer
American photographer (1929-2011)
Richard Virgil Dean Steinheimer (August 23, 1929 – May 4, 2011) was an American railroad photographer from Sacramento, California. His work has been published in Trains Magazine, Railfan, Locomotive and Railway Preservation and Vintage Rail and more than seventy books. A pioneer in railroad photography, Steinheimer lived through and documented the railroads' heyday and their transition to diesel motive power from steam. He is one of few photographers who took into account the aesthetics of all locomotives from steam engines to the latest diesel-powered behemoths. He had a particular fondness for the landscape of the American West and many of his images situate trains in the larger geography and culture of the time. Steinheimer was known for taking pictures at night, in bad weather, and from risky perches on top of moving trains. His photograph, "Southern Pacific steam helper at Saugus, California, 1947," was included in the Center for Railroad Photography and Art's 20 Memorable Railroad Photographs of the 20th Century.
Early life
Richard Steinheimer was born in Chicago in 1929. His parents divorced in 1935, and he, with his mother and sister, moved to Phoenix, Arizona. It was this trip that first exposed him to trains.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2150681. VIAF identifies the subject as 67576725. The Library of Congress control number is n80160394. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 2011, 1947 and 1935.
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