J. David Ingles announces partial retirement

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Dave, we’re gonna miss you.

WAUKESHA, Wis. — After 36 years, Senior Editor J. David Ingles will be giving up his position on the TRAINS Magazine staff, effective June 1, 2007. But as the magazine’s November 2005 65th anniversary issue’s slogan proclaimed — “Retire? No Way!” — Dave will continue to serve as CLASSIC TRAINS’ Senior Editor, as a part-time employee, for the foreseeable future. Dave teams with Editor Rob McGonigal in preparing the quarterly magazine and its Special Editions.

“There just comes that point when it’s time to throttle back,” Ingles said, “and TRAINS is in good hands with its young crew led by Editor Jim Wrinn.” The TRAINS editorial staff also includes Managing Editor Kathi Kube, Senior Editor Matt Van Hattem, Associate Editor Andy Cummings, and Editorial Associate Angela Pusztai-Pasternak. “After over three decades of a life geared to meeting daily, then monthly and now also quarterly, deadlines,” Ingles said, “I thought it best to ‘gear down’ rather than go ‘cold turkey’ directly into a life with no recurring work deadlines.”

“It is hard to imagine TRAINS without Dave Ingles,” Wrinn said. “He has been with this magazine for so long and contributed so much to its success that it is difficult to see him go. His railroad journalism career is unique, covering the era from the end of first-generation diesels and privately run passenger trains to today’s era of growth and resurgence.”

“Dave’s curiosity about all things railroad has kept TRAINS great for decades,” McGonigal said. “This, together with his encyclopedic knowledge of railroad history and geography, will continue to be invaluable assets for CLASSIC TRAINS.”

Dave came to TRAINS from a downstate Illinois daily newspaper, the Illinois State Journal in Springfield, in late May 1971 as Associate Editor under Editor David P. Morgan. Since then he has served as Assistant Editor, Managing Editor, Editor, and since 1992, Senior Editor. He has held that same position with CLASSIC TRAI

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I have always enjoyed his vast knowledge and photos from Central Illinois in the 60’s.

Throttle back, but keep it moving!

ed

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I have a particularly high regard for Dave Ingles because of a decision that he made a number of years ago.

Back in the 1980s, before Dave became the editor of TRAINS, I submitted to the magazine a photo essay that discussed several months that I spent during 1970 photographing trains in California. The essence of the essay was that the railroads provided me with a very helpful diversion because, when I was photographing them, I was enroute to a Navy gunboat squadron in Viet Nam.

After submitting the essay, I didn’t give much additional thought to it. I suppose that’s because I had expressed some thoughts that had been on my mind for years; and I viewed the expressing of those thoughts as being more important than having those thoughts read by others.

So I never made any follow-up inquiries to the magazine; and the essay never appeared. Then, one day years after I had submitted the essay, I received a check enclosed in a note from Dave. In the note, Dave said that he was stepping down as editor of the magazine and that, in conjunction with this, he had been reviewing material that had been contributed over the years but never used. As I recall Dave’s note, he said that when he found my essay, he read it; and when he read it, he decided that, regardless of what his successors might think of what I had written, he felt that it was significant enough that the magazine should at least purchase it. So one of his last decisions as editor was to do that.

The essay never was used; but I never regretted having written it. Looking back, I have absolutely no doubt that I derived more satisfaction from reading what Dave said in his note than I would have derived from having what I wrote published.

Jay Potter

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A few years ago, I had an oppurtunity to meet Dave and thank him for writing stories that refreshed my memories about places I was around in my early years as a rail fan. (We are about the same age.) I complemented him on his excellent memory of events 30 or more years ago, at which point he pulled a note pad from his shirt pocket and explained that such a pad and many more like it was the storage media of his “memory”.

I never had any idea of trying to record my experiences for posterity and since I thought I would always remember the important elements, I didn’t take notes.

So Dave, thanks for covering for me.

So far as deadlines go, I have no idea how anybody could miss them. But just in case, perhaps Mrs Ingles would be willings to put deadlines on the “honey do” list. “Garbage out to the curb-7:00PM today.”

All the best,

Jay Eaton