The Work.
The Witness.

Frédérick Manfred St Simon

Photographer  ·  Railroader

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About  ·  SteelWheels.Photography

The Work
the Iron Demands.

Frédérick M. St. Simon — Railroader  ·  Photographer  ·  Writer  ·  Witness

Four-plus decades of professional, boots-on-the-ground, in-the-field, at-the-throttle railroading from Class I to shortline railroads to contractors, war-zones to rural to big cities, above and underground, from the largest flat-switching classification yard to the smallest industry.
Consulting  ·  Advisory  ·  Production Roadmaster  ·  Terminal Manager  ·  Road Trainmaster  ·  Senior Project Manager  ·  Designated Supervisor of Locomotive Engineers  ·  Locomotive Engineer  ·  Train Conductor  ·  Marketing & Revenue Growth  ·  Locomotive Repair and Rebuilding  ·  Railcar Maintenance and Dismantling
Four-plus decades of professional, boots-on-the-ground, in-the-field, at-the-throttle railroading.
Trains Magazine  ·  Locomotive  ·  Railroad Heritage  ·  CTC Board  ·  Winterail  ·  Autumn Leaf  ·  Washington State DOT (WSDOT)  ·  Production
The People’s Artist — Selected Participant, Presented by Johnny Depp  ·  The Art of Elysium (2026)
Camera  Sony High-Resolution Mirrorless  ·  40+ MP Full-Frame Sensors
Glass  Zeiss  ·  Sony G Master
Based  GoPro 12+ Hero
iPhone Pro and Samsung Ultra — for those otherwise impossible to capture moments
Frédérick M. St. Simon — Washington Eastern Railroad

It began before language. Osceola, Wisconsin — the Soo Line horns over the St. Croix river in the dark, shaking something loose in me at an age before memory properly forms. My father placed me in the cab of a Great Northern yard goat in Great Falls, Montana. That was the beginning. The diesel shop culture in Spokane was the education. Four decades on the iron was the credential.

I am not a photographer who also knows about trains. I am a railroader who also makes images of his intimate professional environment. When I compose a frame, I am composing from the inside of the subject — I know what the engineer is thinking, what the roadmaster is calculating, what the ballast sounds like under the teeth of a tamper at 0300 when the gang is pulling panel and the stars are out and the rail is singing.

SteelWheels Photography is not a portfolio. It is a long-haul journey through the Art – and Craft – of Railroading. Where industry becomes iconography, and every shutter click is a spike driven into the American story. I am not here to make the railroad look pretty. I am here to make it look true.

“Hands down the best.” — Washington State Department of Transportation

Read the Full Story →

Railroader. Photographer. Writer. Witness.

Where the Rails Remember

The rails remember. Even when we don’t. This was no ruin. It was a cipher — a code written in rust and memory, readable only by those who had once been part of the rhythm.

Railroad Photography Services  ·  The American West

Double Track.
Full Service.

⬢  Commercial Photography

Commercial & Editorial

Industry-grade imagery for rail operators, publications, and corporate clients. Operational documentation to campaign-ready content. The only thing that travels from client to client is the quality bar.

⬢  Fine Art Prints

Fine Art & Licensing

Limited edition prints, matted and framed to museum standard. Licensing for publication, broadcast, and commercial use. Images from four decades of field-credentialed access.

⬢  Multimedia Productions

Multimedia & Presentation

Immersive visual narratives for operations, public advocacy, and industry events. Built from the inside — by a railroader who understands what the work actually looks like.

⬢  Infrastructure Documentation

Operations Documentation

Track inspection, production gang documentation, infrastructure photography. GPS-stamped, time-coded, field-accurate. The kind of record that holds up under review.

“Dream Job”

“It’s a lifestyle, not a job.” A lifestyle, a brotherhood that intimates, friends, and pedestrians alike find difficult to appreciate, even reconcile with. Having become a professional boots-on-the-ground and in-the-seat operations railroader, my perspective of what it is to be a railroader has wiped the nostalgic notion of railroad romanticism from my psyche — but for the innate love of it. And documenting it.

Fine Art & Productions

The Works.

⬢  Critically Acclaimed  ·  WSDOT  ·  EWGRR

“What Was Begun, Must Be Finished”

A multimedia presentation produced for the Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad in support of its bid to retain operations of Washington State DOT’s Central Washington Subdivision. A photographic and narrative argument made in steel, light, and consequence — performed live and delivered where it mattered most.

“Hands down the best.”

— Washington State Department of Transportation

Watch Film → “What Was Begun, Must Be Finished”
⬢  Winterail 2019

“Metallic Machinations”

Produced and presented at Winterail 2019 — the pinnacle gathering of railroad creatives. An immersive multimedia production exploring the visceral machinations of modern railroading in motion, shadow, and sound. Premiered to the most discerning audience in the genre.

Watch Film → Metallic Machinations
Railroad Photography Workshops  ·  Double Track

Learn the Iron.

Six corridors. Six different encounters with working American railroading. Led by a photographer who has worked every one of these subdivisions.

BNSF-MRL Mullan Pass Bozeman Tunnel — Rocky Mountain Corridor
Montana  ·  Northern Idaho  ·  Former Montana Rail Link (now BNSF)

Rocky Mountain Corridor

The former Montana Rail Link mainline through Mullan Pass, Bozeman Tunnel, and Lombard Canyon. Big sky. Heavy tonnage. Unforgiving grades.

⬢  Curriculum in development  ·  First sessions targeted Fall / Winter 2026
Join the Waitlist →
BNSF at Latah Junction — Pacific Northwest Corridor
Eastern Washington  ·  Spokane

Latah Bridge & the BNSF Corridor

A BNSF westbound across Latah Bridge — an infamous stretch of notoriously congested railroad. New locations, new angles, the intensity of the Pacific Northwest corridor.

⬢  Curriculum in development  ·  First sessions targeted Fall / Winter 2026
Join the Waitlist →
WER St. Elmo's Fire — Night Iron Workshop
Eastern WA  ·  Northern Idaho

Night Iron

Photography at night using only ambient light. A whole new world. Crisp, clear images under the cover of night in and around the Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho rail scene.

⬢  Curriculum in development  ·  First sessions targeted Fall / Winter 2026
Join the Waitlist →
BNSF Stack Train Rolling into Winslow — East on the Transcon
Flagstaff  ·  Winslow  ·  Holbrook  ·  BNSF Seligman & Gallup Subs

East on the Transcon

The BNSF mainline east of Flagstaff through Winslow and Holbrook. High desert light, ancient geology, relentless train traffic. The Arizona Transcon at its most elemental.

⬢  Curriculum in development  ·  First sessions targeted Fall / Winter 2026
Join the Waitlist →
BNSF Hyrailing with AZDOT and FRA — West on the Seligman Sub
Flagstaff  ·  Williams  ·  Seligman  ·  Hackberry  ·  Kingman

West on the Seligman Sub

Route 66 country. The BNSF Seligman Subdivision west through Williams and out to Kingman. Dramatic elevation changes, desert canyon light, and the ghost of the Santa Fe.

⬢  Curriculum in development  ·  First sessions targeted Fall / Winter 2026
Join the Waitlist →
BNSF Rail Production Gang — The Peavine
Flagstaff  ·  Prescott  ·  Phoenix  ·  BNSF Phoenix Sub

The Peavine — South to Phoenix

The former Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Peavine route south from Flagstaff through Prescott down to Phoenix. One of the most photogenic corridors in the American Southwest.

⬢  Curriculum in development  ·  First sessions targeted Fall / Winter 2026
Join the Waitlist →

“Devil’s Canyon”  ·  Feb 1986

When the train finally arrived and the light was fresh and fine, it made it worth the excruciating waiting game. That is railroading — the ratio of patience to moment, measured in Kodachromes.

Their aching roar obliterates the crepuscular peace. Engineer Bruce Butler, the bantam centenarian, has gone round-and-round with this nemesis for years — putting his gut-instinct mojo on the throttle, beating killer curve one more time. It is precisely then, in his gut and by the seat of his pinstriped bib overalls, that he knows he has beat the Hill.

Integrum™  ·  The Full-Sensor Print Series  ·  Uncropped  ·  Border-Honest

Integrum.

From the Latin integrum — whole, unaltered, restored to its original state. Integrum is a new word for a new thing: railroad photography presented exactly as the sensor recorded it. No crop. No convention. No four right angles imposed on what the optics actually captured.

Every image in this collection carries a white border — not as a stylistic choice but as an honest declaration. The border is the sensor’s edge. The shape inside it is the shape of the truth. Some are wider than standard. Some are taller. Some carry the distortion-corrected geometry of extreme glass at work in the field. All of them are precisely what was there.

This has not been done in railroad photography. The tradition is to conform the image to the frame. Integrum conforms the frame to the image. Every one is a limited edition. Every one is unique in shape. Every one is as it was.

Integrum
The Full-Sensor Print Series  ·  Uncropped  ·  Border-Honest

The first collection of full-frame, distortion-corrected, border-honest railroad photography. Limited editions. Matted and framed to the image’s own geometry.

Status
Coming Soon
Notify Me When Available →
Contact  ·  SteelWheels.Photography

Get in Touch.

Whether you are inquiring about a workshop, licensing railroad photography, or commissioning original work — reach out directly. Every inquiry is answered personally.

simon@steelwheels.photography

(928) 605-7984  ·  Direct

Flagstaff, Arizona  ·  7,000 ft

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Thank you for reaching out. Every inquiry is read and answered personally — not by a system, not by an autoresponder. You will hear back directly.

Frédérick M. St. Simon  ·  SteelWheels.Photography