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Large photograph, 24" X 41",unmounted. Denver and Salt Lake Railroad. This photo was taken by Mr Richard H. Kindig and his description of this scene reads as follows: D&SL 302, 4-6-0, on Train # 1 west of Plainview, Colo., 2 cars, 25 mph, 9:45 am. December 7, 1941. This shot was taken just a few hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Mr. James Ehernberger describes that day in his article below. Mr. Kindig was an accomplished photographer and historian who is very well known, especially in railroad circles.

I had the privilege of printing some of Mr. Kindig's negatives in the late '80s and the early '90s. This is one of those prints that has been stored away since that time. Mr. Kindig honored my request to autograph the print, which added a nice touch to a real piece of history and is a tribute to a great man.

This print is in good shape and it has had an archival wash when it was made, so it should be stable for very long time. Ilford paper, semi gloss, double weight. The negative size was 3 1/2" X 5 1/2" and the print is in sharp focus with good resolution. This photo is more crisp and brighter than the scan indicates.

All rights for copying and publication are retained by Mr. James L. Ehernberger.

50 Spring-Summer 2007 RAILROAD HISTORY 51

PRINT &

IMAGE

R ichard H. Kindig was born in Denver on

February 13, 1916, and has spent all of his life

in the city. His astounding photographs of steam

locomotives battling Rocky Mountain grades,

however, have made his name known around the world.

Kindig did not have any formal training in photography.

He learned it on his own, including the ability to print

photos from his negatives. While he has not kept a record

of how many images he has made, one can easily estimate

that it exceeds 50,000, since he has produced more than

20,000 postcard-size exposures alone. Always willing to

provide illustrations for railfan magazines and authors, his

images have been widely published.

His negatives date back to 1932 when he took a 116-size

folding Kodak camera to the roof of a downtown Denver

building and shot streetcar views along 16th Street. After

attending the Railroad Fair in Chicago in 1933, he shifted

GIANTS AND DWARFS By James L. Ehernberger

to pictures of locomotives and trains. One of his favorite

early views was of Union Pacific No. 9004, a 4-12-2, at

the icehouse at Laramie, Wyo. With the tracks running

north-south, Laramie was a good location for afternoon

photographs of engines.

His father, Claude Kindig, worked on several railroads,

including the Colorado & Southern narrow gauge, before

he hired out as a conductor on the Union Pacific. Richard

often rode his train from Denver to Cheyenne, Wyo., and

sometimes to Green River, Wyo. w he took pictures

during his dadâe(tm)s layovers.

In 1937, Kindig acquired his first Graflex camera. This

enabled him to take action photos because the focal plane

(curtain) shutter allowed speeds up to 1/1,000th of a second.

The first Graflex cameras used film packs, but the subsequent

cameras that he owned used six-exposure roll film. He said

he wore out five or six Graflexes over the years.

In 1938, he made a trip with noted railroad photographer

Otto Perry to the narrow-gauge country of the Denver &

Rio Grande Western in southwest Colorado. Perry taught

him to document his photographs and maintain good

records, such as the date, locomotives, number of cars,

and approximate speed when a train passed.

In the 1930s, he used his fatherâe(tm)s Oldsmobile to chase

trains, and later purchased a second-hand Plymouth sedan

from O. K. Woods, a UP engineer and friend. On Pearl

Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, Kindig remembered

taking an action shot of a northbound C&S doubleheader

de...

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