Steve Barry has had a life-long interest in trains starting as a child growing up in southern New Jersey. Summer evenings were spent with his father Ernie watching the commuter trains coming into his hometown of Millville from the Philadelphia suburb of Camden. Weekends were spent on day trips to the Strasburg Rail Road or riding the Reading's legendary Iron Horse Rambles.
After graduating from Rutgers University in 1979, Steve started his full-time railfanning (at least on vacations and weekends) by attending that year's NRHS Convention in Washington, D.C. Since then he has attended every NRHS gathering, including this year's in Salt Lake City. He later became the National Director for the NRHS Wilmington, Delaware, Chapter and the NRHS Eastern Region Vice President.
Steve has been a contributor to the rail hobby press for about 15 years, starting with an article in Rail Classics in 1983. In 1986 he submitted his first article to Railpace, which began a long and productive relationship with the regional news magazine. In 1993 he started writing the Creative Camera column on a semi-regular basis.
In 1996 Steve left his vocation of 16 years, accounting, to start a new career in the rail magazine industry by joining the staff of Railfan & Railroad as associate editor. He'll shoot anything on rails from Conrail's latest power to streetcars to tourist steam. He estimates that he has taken about 80,000 slides in 17 years of photography. When not shooting or writing, he can be found in front of the television watching any version of Star Trek or NFL football. He also has a large collection of country music from the 1970s to the present, including 350 CDs and 1200 vinyl albums.
Steve lives in Newton with his wife Genie and the 10 "kids" (five dogs and five cats). Genie enjoys riding trains and reads Railfan cover to cover every month.
Bio & photo courtesy Railfan & Railroad. |