All ERA members in good standing receive the Association’s magazine, Headlights, America’s premier journal dedicated to light rail transit, subways, interurbans, electric railroads and other forms of electric transportation. Currently published twice a year, each ad-free issue is packed with in-depth coverage of transit systems, news and book reviews contributed by leaders in the transit field. Recent issues have featured in-depth coverage of systems in Croydon, Portland, Ore., Newark, N.J., Boston, Mass., Japan, North Korea and China. With its full-color images by renowned transit photographers, and detailed route maps that appear nowhere else, you’ll see why fans call Headlights “the National Geographic of train magazines.”
Starting with the May-June 1996 issue, Headlights has been designed by editor/art director Sandy Campbell (ERA #5228). It is printed by Fulton Press of Lititz, Pa. on state-of-the-art equipment from electronic files composed originally with QuarkXPress and now with Adobe InDesign CS4. Instead of the occassional color page that Headlights used to print in the past, Campbell worked with Fulton so that all covers and every other spread could print in color. As more contributors switch to using digital cameras, photographic reproduction quality in Headlights is better than ever.
Headlights is now full-color with twice the usual number of pages, often four-page color map supplements. The current issue (January-June 2005, right) and January-June 2004 are the biggest issues of Headlights ever published, weighing in at a whopping 84 full-color, ad-free pages each! Systems visited during the many exciting ERA trips and conventions each year are regularly featured, such as the Czech Republic, Twin Cities, San Francisco, Houston-Dallas and more.
The cover dates of Headlights issues do not necessarily correspond with the date of publication, which may be up to three years later. The reasons for this are two fold. First, ERA is a completely volunteer organization and it can take up to a year for us to produce an issue of Headlights. Second, since ERA annual dues include at least one issue of Headlights, the dues for a particular year are not considered balanced until an issue of Headlights from that year is published.