Legacy America: A Portrait of the American Railway: A portrait of the American Railway

In this coffee-table companion book to the documentary film of the same name, artist and author Holt Webb tells the story of the American Steam engine through his camera lens.

The book contains one hundred pages of creative color and black-and-white photography captured during the filming of the 2025 documentary Legacy America.

From the film's opening monologue:

You may have seen these icons before.

Maybe you saw them in a picture book or even a movie.

These machines of yesterday were controlled by one simple element: Steam.

I am in awe at the detail of what goes into making these living, breathing monsters work.

What once began as train tenders full of coal is now replaced by computers with circuits smaller than the eye can see.

The pioneers who built these machines figured out how to venture across the American frontier to get us the food we eat and the cargo we needed to build the infrastructure of our nation.

And for the first time, these steam-powered machines allowed us to travel long distances in comfort.

It's the American Steam engine.

My name is Holt Webb, and I'm a photographer.

Join me as we venture across the American frontier, uncovering the people, places, and stories that built this great nation and brought us together.

This ... is our Legacy America.