Continuing our countdown of the Trains News Wire Top 10 stories of 2022, as determined by a vote of Trains editors, columnists, and masthead correspondents:
When a college advisor at the University of North Carolina asked Jim Wrinn in 1979 to name his dream job, he didn’t hesitate: editor of Trains magazine. There is no record of how the advisor responded, but he or she would have been wise to tell the 18-year-old journalism student to “go for it.” He did just that.
Wrinn’s subsequent term of nearly 18 years at the throttle of Trains was hugely successful, thus the sharp pain the magazine’s readers felt when their editor died March 30, 2022, after a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. Wrinn was only 61. His passing was marked with widespread sadness across a wide spectrum of people involved in railroading, from railroad executives to steam preservationists to average fans.
Doggedly dedicated to the mission of his magazine, Wrinn’s longevity at Trains was eclipsed only by the 33-year tenure of David P. Morgan, the magazine’s celebrated editor from 1953 to 1987. In fact, Morgan was in the prime of his career when Wrinn began reading Trains as a 6-year-old in his hometown of Franklin, N.C. The younger editor often cited Morgan as a central influence.
Wrinn’s career checked nearly all the classic journalism boxes. He wrote and edited the student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel at UNC, and upon graduation immediately went on to reporting jobs on daily newspapers in Gastonia and Fayetteville. In 1986, he joined the Charlotte Observer, one of the South’s most prestigious newspapers, and worked in various editing and reporting roles until Trains hired him away in 2004.
Long before he joined the magazine, Wrinn began contributing to Trains. His first contribution was a news photo in the October 1982 issue, followed by his first feature byline in December 1989 with a report about railroad damaged caused by Hurricane Hugo. Later articles touched on a number of topics, mostly related to railroading in the South. He also authored or co-authored five books, including “Steam’s Camelot” (TLC Publishing, 2000), a definitive history of the steam programs of Southern Railway and Norfolk Southern.
Wrinn arrived at the magazine’s offices in Waukesha, Wis., at a portentous moment in the history of print magazines, faced with the challenge of attracting and keeping readers as digital media began its ascendance. Wrinn’s response was to oversee a dramatic expansion of products and services under the Trains banner: expanded online news coverage and use of social media, the introduction of streaming live video, numerous stand-alone print special issues, and a variety of Trains-sponsored tours, excursions, and events. In November 2015, he marked the magazine’s 75th anniversary by hosting a gala celebration at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee.
Throughout these new initiatives, he kept the focus of the staff and its numerous contributing writers and photographers on the print magazine, ensuring that Trains maintained its lead as the authoritative source for coverage of Class I mergers, changes in railroad operating strategy, new technologies, expansion of commuter rail, the ups and downs of Amtrak, and news about railroad preservation, especially steam.
The latter was a favorite topic of the editor. Himself an accomplished steam preservationist — his pet locomotive was Graham County Shay No. 1925 at the North Carolina Museum of Transportation, where he was a longtime leader — Wrinn lavished coverage on revivals of engines large and small. Nowhere was that more evident than in Trains’ coverage of Union Pacific’s restoration and operation of Big Boy 4-8-8-4 No. 4014. Led by his seasoned news judgment, Wrinn produced a special Big Boy issue of the magazine, offered live video updates of 4014 in action, covered 4014’s debut at Ogden, Utah, in May 2019, and wrote an introduction to the Kalmbach book “Union Pacific’s Big Boys.”
On many assignments, Wrinn was accompanied by his wife, Cate Kratville-Wrinn, herself a member of the railroad community by way of her father William Kratville, a prominent Omaha-based author, photographer, and historian, principally of the Union Pacific.
Perhaps no one appreciated Wrinn’s leadership at Trains more than the scores of freelance writers who worked for him. The magazine’s long tradition of nurturing writers was something the editor took seriously, and he was rewarded with their loyalty, despite the modest compensation. One of them was Fred W. Frailey, who served as a longtime columnist for Wrinn and who had worked with all five editors since Morgan.
“Versus all the others, Jim had a priceless virtue: he kept his hands off what I wrote, editing with the lightest of touches. What writer doesn’t love that?” says Frailey. “And he possessed a personality that radiated calm. I’d call him worked up over some grievance and then say goodbye, soothed by some Wrinnesque phrase that punctured my anger. Jim’s love of all things steam may have irritated some readers, but it was an amusing quirk that made the man fascinating to me.”
Similar sentiments come from Bill Stephens, a veteran Trains contributor and current columnist. In Wrinn, he found a collaborator who made life easier.
“Jim was a consummate pro,” says Stephens. “And he was what every writer wants in an editor: someone who challenged you, encouraged you, and allowed you to pursue a story. He had a great nose for news and a sense of what our readers cared about.
“When he offered me the opportunity to take the retiring columnist Fred Frailey’s place, he made it clear no topic was off limits and I would be free to write about whatever tickled my fancy. That’s a big deal, and all a columnist could ask for.”
Great magazine editors usually are acutely aware of their legacy. On the occasion of David P. Morgan’s retirement in 1987, his successor, J. David Ingles, asked why his longtime boss wasn’t planning to leave an archive of letters, speeches, and other ephemera. Morgan smiled, turned in his chair, and pointed to a shelf groaning with bound volumes of Trains, wrapped in maroon leather and gold leaf. “Because it’s all already there,” he said.
Jim Wrinn could say the same thing. He left it all in the magazine he loved.
Additional News Wire coverage:
Jim Wrinn led Trains Magazine with passion, March 30, 2022
News photos: Albany & Eastern pays tribute to Wrinn, April 4, 2022
Jim Wrinn tribute video — a compilation, April 8, 2022
Grand Canyon excursion honors late Trains editor, April 25, 2022
News photo: Plaque honoring Trains editor Wrinn added to Western Maryland Scenic No. 1309, May 6, 2022
First Jim Wrinn Award highlights HeritageRail Alliance meeting, Sept. 16, 2022
I was six in 1941 when Trains began. My dad worked for the MoPac in Milwaukee and penned six articles for Trains under a pseudonym in the forties. I have read it ever since 1942. Dad had collected issues since 1942 and when he passed I kept them. But after I moved to a senior community, space availability was limited. I chose to discard them knowing that they were available on a disc. Trains has been very fortunate in its choice of Editors and I appreciate all that I get.
Before his days at Trains, while he was still with the Charlotte Observer, Jim, I and a few others would hang around the Gastonia Amtrak Station on Saturday nights waiting for the northbound Crescent to come through. Good times. Jim, you are missed.
Jim Wrinn you were a great editor. I always enjoyed your perspectives on various topics. I have been getting Trains magazine since 1967. Look forward to my issue each month.
jim wrinn will always forever be remembered and will never be forgotten he’ll be known as a proud editor of trains magazine and the pictures and videos of trains he had taken lives on in his memory
I first saw Trains Magazine in a Chicago bookstore in 1968. I’ve been hooked ever since. Gratitude to all Kalmbach staff, living and deceased, who have provided this important and consistently perfect magazine each month. Privileged to share a hometown with Kalmbach, the Town of Brookfield, Waukesha County Wisconsin.
R.I.P. Jim Wrinn. Among the finest, you were the finest.