John Gruber, a railroad historian and photographer, is a founder of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, Madison, Wisconsin, and its first president from 1997 to 2013. He has been a freelance railroad photographer for Trains since 1960. He received awards from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society in 1994 for lifetime achievement in photography, in 2010 for an article, "Railroading Journeys," about the life, times, and photography of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, and in 2015 for a book, Railroaders: Jack Delano's Homefront Photography. He is co-author of Beebe and Clegg: Their Enduring Photographic Legacy (2018), a book from the Center for Railroad Photography and Art that tells about how partners Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg introduced railroad photography and the world of railroading to wide popular audiences. His personal documentation of preservation and commitment to its realization extends from the 1960s to today. In a 10-page article, Provocateur of Railroad Photography, in the Winer 2014 issue of Classic Trains, Kevin P. Keefe describes him as “one of the most influential figures in the field.”