{"id":1816,"date":"2015-10-13T19:13:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=1816"},"modified":"2015-10-20T16:57:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T16:57:54","slug":"jj-young-railroad-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/jj-young-railroad-photographer","title":{"rendered":"Forever Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

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J.J. Young, Railroad\u00a0Photographer<\/h2>\n
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\u201cWHOOWOOOOOOOOO\u2026WHOWOO\u2026WHOWOO\u2026WHOWOO! A hoot whistle cuts through the hazy shimmering heat of a steamy Ohio River Valley mid-July morning in Wheeling, West Virginia. Hey! Listen. A Humper\u2019s just whistled out the th\u2019 flag. He\u2019s gonna take water at Bridgeport. Let\u2019s go get \u2019em! (a \u2018Humper\u2019 is local slang for a B&O lake coal train working \u2018over the hump\u2019 from Wheeling to Holloway, Ohio). You grab camera and film and take off running. Down 14th Street, up Eoff Street, cut thru the Yellow Cab\u2019s back lot, up Chapline Street past the post office, over 10th Street and across Market, attacking auto and pedestrian traffic like a Kamikaze trainee.\u201d<\/strong> -J.J. Young<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\"J.J.<\/a>
J.J. Young in Wheeling on Oct. 10, 1998 for the B&O Historical Society Convention. Photo by Jay Potter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many years ago, on a Thanksgiving Day just before her country was drawn into a second global war, a mother in Goosetown, West Virginia, sent her son to the store for salt.<\/p>\n

Finding the store closed for another hour, the boy, as he was wont to do, wandered over to the Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station near the Wheeling Wharf. The crew of a Pittsburgh bound locomotive recognized the boy, and offered him a ride. Never one to refuse a ride on a locomotive, the boy climbed onboard. Later at the B&O station in Pittsburgh while waiting for a train back to Wheeling, the boy was recognized by another crew and offered another ride, and so on\u2026<\/p>\n

That evening, a worried mother back in Goosetown received a telephone call from Buffalo, New York, advising her to send someone else for the Thanksgiving salt.<\/p>\n

That boy\u2019s name was John \u201cJ. J.\u201d Young. And he loved trains. A lot. \u201cEver after that,\u201d Young recalled, \u201cwhenever I left the house, my mother always told me,\u00a0\u2018Send me a postcard when you get there.'\u201d<\/p>\n

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Born on May 23, 1929, J.J. Young grew up at 977 McColloch Street in the heart of Goosetown near the familiar \u201cTunnel Green\u201d train tunnel, fed by the stone-arch viaduct built by Charles Ellet Jr.<\/a>, the same engineer who built Wheeling\u2019s iconic suspension bridge. The viaduct and tunnel are still there, now part of Wheeling\u2019s Heritage Trail for walkers and bikers. But from the 1930s through the 1950s, the area was a hub of traffic for the Pennsylvania and B.&O. Railroads.<\/p>\n

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Animated gif, Then and Now, J.J. Young photo: 17th toward McColloch St. More animated Then and Now gifs of J.J. Young photos can be viewed in a gallery below.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And J.J. Young quite literally had a front row seat. \u201cWhen you lived in such close proximity to railroads,\u201d Young said, \u201cyou either loved them or hated them. I loved them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He could watch the trains pass by from his front window or the front porch. But he had to get closer, despite the obstacles. It seemed\u00a0to\u00a0Young that everyone \u2014 his parents, his teachers \u2014 tried to keep him away from his beloved trains. But he would not be deterred.\u00a0\u201cI was never one to play by the rules. I did my thing my way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ran, climbed, hustled, fibbed \u2014 whatever he had to do to get near the trains. He was\u00a0around the yards so much, the engineers eventually started to recognize him. Before age seven he\u2019d been invited to ride with the crew, the first of many such complimentary train rides for young Mr. Young. \u201cThe engineer\u2019s seatbox was like a throne,\u201d he later recalled. \u201cThat was heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A young J.J. Young catches a ride, camera in hand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Young started photographing the trains at the tender age of five, borrowing (without permission) his father\u2019s Zeiss folding camera from the chifforobe. \u201cI had to put it back in the exact place and in the exact manner I found it so he wouldn\u2019t find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He bought a Brownie box camera of his own at age seven, followed by a Kodak Vigilant, a Kodak Monitor, and a speed graphic. Young taught himself how to take photographs as well as how to develop film and create prints. He always maintained that skill in the darkroom was more important than skill with a camera.<\/p>\n

Young was bold enough to ask to see the B. & O.\u2019s Wheeling Division Superintendent, John J. Sell, to seek permission to freely photograph all the B.& O. trains and rail yards. As it turned out, Sell had been watching Young around the tracks for quite a long time and was impressed by the way the young\u00a0man looked both ways and never stepped directly on the rails. Sell said he wished his men would observe the safety rules as diligently as Young did. Sell gave Young a veritable blank check of access to the B.&O. in Wheeling and told Young that if anyone questioned him, they were to contact him directly. That was never necessary, as the B.&O. crews accepted Young as a friend and never questioned the young photographer\u2019s access.\u00a0The railroaders trusted him. He never let his work interfere with their work, and they never saw him as a hindrance. And that trust meant the world to J.J. Young.<\/p>\n

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J.J. Young was not a pretentious man. He never owned a car or held a driver\u2019s license. He never owned a suit. He carried his cameras in grocery bags. But his art belies his humble ways.<\/p>\n

He loved the steamers best and \u00a0photographed his beloved trains almost exclusively in black and white. He tried to photograph above the action, looking down to capture the whole story. \u201cIf I can find something to get up on,\u201d he said, \u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll get up on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When the end of the golden age of his beloved steam trains coincided with the loss of his job at Wheeling Mold and Foundry in the late 1950s, Young moved to Binghamton, New York, where he taught photography for many years at a technical college, retiring with his wife Liz to Charleston, WV, in 1995. Though reaching celebrity status among railroad enthusiasts, even being recently named one of Trains Magazine<\/a>\u2018s \u201c75 People You Should Know,\u201d J.J. remained first and foremost, an educator. As his good friend and fellow railroad photographer, Jay Potter, eloquently said, \u201cHe certainly didn\u2019t act like a celebrity\u00a0.\u00a0. . and he also didn\u2019t think like a celebrity, he thought like an educator. If he were here . . .\u00a0he would, I\u2019m sure, want to teach us something. I think what he would want to teach us as we look at his photos is not to concentrate so much on the work and the ability it took to create the photos, but rather concentrate on the work and the abilities that the photos illustrate which is the day-to-day work of railroading. He celebrated railroading, he celebrated the work of railroaders, and that\u2019s what his photos illustrate. And that\u2019s what he spent most of his life doing. And he\u2019d want Wheeling to remember the importance of railroading.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Listen to Jay Potter speak about good friend J.J. Young at the at the Grand Opening of the OCPL Archives and the J.J. Young Photo Exhibit at the Ohio County Public Library, October 12th, 2015.<\/p>\n