The Railway and Locomotive History Society honored Gruber in 1994 with a lifetime achievement award in railroad photography.
The Center’s first exhibition, "Railroads and Photography: 150 Years of Great Images", opened in 1999 at Railfair at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, later traveling to Altoona, Pennsylvania; Madison, Wisconsin; Lake Forest and Champaign, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; Carson City and Ely, Nevada; and Kennesaw, Georgia.
These were shown on both coasts and in the Midwest, notably at Grand Central Terminal in New York City and the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Center also collaborated with Thomas H. Garver to prepare an exhibition (at the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum in Cape Girardeau and the California State Railroad Museum) about the photographs of O. Winston Link, the famed railroad photographer and sound recorder.
[4] In it were the following works: Since 2003, the Center has sponsored annual conferences and an awards program for contemporary railroad photography.