I first walked into the office at Carstens Publications as an employee in March 1996. In many ways, it seemed as if I had already been there for 22 years.
In fall 1974, I was a high school student in my senior year in Woodstown, N.J. My dad had just subscribed to a magazine called Railfan that was making its debut; at the time, the only magazine about trains we were getting was Railroad. Inside this new publication, I found a lot of neat things — but especially appealing was a column titled “Camera Bag” written by Editor Jim Boyd. I had been dabbling in railroad photography, but couldn’t seem to get the knack of it. Through subsequent issues of Railfan, Jim helped me sort out what I was doing wrong, and my photography improved dramatically in a relatively short time.
I was off to college in September 1975, attending Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Dad was still getting Railfan back home, but I couldn’t wait for the trips down to South Jersey to read the latest issue. Whenever I thought a new issue was about to be released, I’d make the trek to Steve Varga’s hobby shop downtown and snap up the latest issue as soon as it was available.
One of my early goals was to get published. With that in mind, I began studying the news and feature photos in each issue of Railfan, seeing who was getting published and how they approached it. Once out of college, I started attending the conventions of the National Railway Historical Society. At the 1981 convention, based out of Louisville, Ky., I took a decent photo of one of the excursions — led by Family Lines (Clinchfield) F7 800 — and submitted it to Railfan. Suddenly, I was a published photographer!
From there, I wanted to get into writing features. It was at the 1982 convention based in Denver where I shared a rental car with Alex Mayes — one of the most prolific news photo contributors at the time — who gave me a crash course on getting published. “Start with Rail Classics,” he suggested, “to get the feel for how it all works.” I did, and had my first published feature in 1983.
From there, things took off. I somehow wound up sharing a cab ride in an ex-Pennsylvania Railroad E8 on Blue Mountain & Reading with R&R (by then the merger of Railfan and Railroad had taken place) Associate Editor Mike Del Vecchio. I pitched him a feature on the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club’s 50th anniversary celebration in 1986, and he agreed. I soon had my first R&R byline.
I became friends with the R&R staff, helping Boyd with night photo sessions and bugging Del Vecchio and Bruce Kelly for information whenever I could. My work began appearing regularly in Railpace Newsmagazine, along with the occasional R&R byline.
By late 1995, I had been out of college for 16 years and working as a journeyman accountant. Del Vecchio and I were both delegates to the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey and seeing each other at monthly meetings. Following one of the meetings, he asked the question — “Would you like to do the magazine thing full-time?” I thought about it for a bit less than two seconds and said, “Yes!”
Thus, by the time I walked through that door at Carstens in 1996, I felt like I was already a member of the Railfan family. Everyone instantly made me feel welcome. I’m forever grateful to Hal Carstens and Jim Boyd for letting me turn a fun hobby into an enjoyable career (and to current Publisher Kevin EuDaly for keeping the fun going).
For me, it’s been a fun 50-year journey. Let’s keep this ride going for another 50 years, and more! —Steve Barry
—Regular columnist Alexander Benjamin Craghead returns next month.
