J.D.I. has left the building

I was a nervous 23-year-old when I walked through the front door at 1027 N. Seventh Street, Milwaukee, on August 12, 1974. It was my first day on the job as the sales promotion manager in Kalmbach’s Sales Department. 

What had me apprehensive wasn’t the job so much as it was the prospect of suddenly walking the halls with some very imposing names: David P. Morgan, of course, but also George Gloff, Rosemary Entringer, Harold Edmonson, Bill Akin, and George Drury. Luckily the first person I encountered was artist Gil Reid, who was the embodiment of self-effacement. He put me at ease.

There was another colleague I must have met that first day, one with whom I’d go on to have a long, warm friendship and professional association. That would be J. David Ingles, or “J.D.I.,” then the associate editor of Trains, just three years into the job.  

Dave and I hit it off immediately. I think a lot of it initially was that we’d both come out of newspaper newsrooms, in his case the Jacksonville (Ill.) Journal-Courier and Springfield’s Illinois State Journal, where he was the assistant sports editor. I’ve always believed that time served in a real newspaper newsroom is the best training a journalist could ever have, and Dave had that cred big-time.  

But there were other things we shared. We both liked Michigan railroading (he’d grown up for a time in Dearborn). We both shared a number of friends, including Mike Schafer, then a member of the Kalmbach Books staff. And we both loved sports. I’ll be forever grateful to Dave and Carol for dragging me along to County Stadium on the night of October 10, 1982, when the Brewers beat the Angels to win the American League pennant.

Now Dave is moving on, retiring from Kalmbach and transitioning to a freelance status with Classic Trains, where he’ll be listed as contributing editor. His impact on the magazine won’t really change all that much — he’ll be editing features, contributing “Ingles Color Classics” in every issue, proofreading maps, and other things. Still, I’ll have an empty feeling next time I’m in the building, knowing he’s not in that office with the big Southern Pacific system map. 

It’s hard for me to wrap my arms around this, but Dave and I have been working together one way or the other for more than 45 years. When I left Kalmbach in 1976 to go back to newspapers in Michigan, we stayed in touch, especially after I returned to Milwaukee in 1980 to work at the Milwaukee Sentinel. 

Then, in 1987, I got the call from Dave that changed my life. Morgan was retiring. J.D.I. was the new Editor. There was an opening for an associate editor. Was I interested? There was no hesitation. If Dave would hire me, I’d leave the newspaper in a heartbeat.

Dave did hire me, of course, and there began perhaps the best professional relationship of my career. Whoever was at the top of the Trains masthead — him, me, or subsequent editors for that matter — Dave and I have always enjoyed each other’s work, each other’s barbs, and each other’s company.

We’ve done a bit of traveling together, too. Which is always a treat — no one knows the American railroad landscape like J.D.I. I can’t count how many times I’ve been mystified by a junction I’ve encountered somewhere, called Dave, and got a quick “Oh yeah, that’s Sheldon, where the Big Four crossed the TP&W.”

Now that J.D.I. is joining me in retirement, three things occur to me.

First, he’s a terrific mentor. When I hired on with Trains in 1987, I figured I was a fairly competent editor after 14 years in the business. Wrong! I had so much to learn. I remember the shock of seeing my first copy come back in what we called edit-check mode, my computer screen ablaze with corrections, transpositions, questions, and other butchery. My first reaction was, “What the hell!” But going over the text, I was forced to admit that every change he made improved the story. 

In the railroad writing community, J.D.I. has taken occasional heat for details or facts he adds to stories, but I almost always applaud it. He apprenticed under Morgan, which means he learned firsthand the Trains way: look for the telling detail, the salient fact, the surprising statistic, things that make your story airtight.

Second, J.D.I. was a great boss, the best I ever had. Good bosses are the ones you learn from, who exhibit just the right blend of authority and patience. I still regard those five years I spent as a junior staffer as perhaps the most fun of my career. Free from the responsibility of managing anything, I could simply enjoy my good fortune at being paid to write about railroads, for a guy who knew what he was doing.

Dave had another strength as a boss: his amazing generosity. From the moment I arrived, J.D.I. made sure we balanced the plum assignments, including everything from steam excursions to railroad business-car travel to cab rides. More than a few times I muttered to myself, “How could Dave pass this up?” as I boarded an Amtrak demonstration train, or thrilled to the sight of a big steam locomotive on a main line. He got his, for sure, but I got mine, and that’s a tribute to his whole approach.

Finally, Dave and I have remained good friends throughout our tenure together. Our later trips together — many with Trains Associate Editor, now Classic Trains Editor, Rob McGonigal — stand out in my mind. Dave, remember my first Steak ’n Shake burger at the diamond in Effingham? Or the tour I conducted of the NYC ruins in my hometown? Or how we shared the back platform on Clark Johnson’s Caritas, rolling toward Quincy at 79? Or the countless bull sessions amid the notorious clutter of your office?

Now J.D.I. is leaving the building, although he’s not going very far. Home is about a mile away from the Kalmbach offices, and 17 miles from my house. I’m counting on that distance being meaningless, since Dave and I still have a lot of railroading to debate and discuss. And, masochist that I am, I’ll be asking him to give my own manuscripts a going-over from time to time, just to see that piercing red pencil of his back in action. I’ll still be learning from him.