His work has been published in Trains Magazine, Railfan, Locomotive and Railway Preservation and Vintage Rail and more than seventy books.
He had a particular fondness for the landscape of the American West and many of his images situate trains in the larger geography and culture of the time.
Steinheimer was known for taking pictures at night, in bad weather, and from risky perches on top of moving trains.
In 1945 he started his photographic career with a Kodak Baby Brownie, shooting wartime traffic in the common 3⁄4 "wedgies" style.
His specialties included the use of telephoto lenses in railroad scenes, and a devotion to Southern Pacific's Donner Pass crossing of the Sierra Nevada.
The Center has received about 30,000 color slides and a large collection of black and white prints and scans, and negatives from 1975 onward.