Carton magazine with control sensor

An infeed station for conveying and positioning a stack of carton blanks for sequential removal by a carton feeder, for automatically adjusting the rate of advancement of the carton blanks to compensate for excessive tilting and gaps between the carton blanks, and for providing alerts to signal the need for operator intervention or automatic shutdown. The infeed station includes a hopper and a magazine that receives carton blanks from the hopper. The magazine includes a sensing mechanism including a control sensor and a warning sensor mounted in proximity to the carton blanks in the infeed station, and a processor that, according to a condition signaled by the sensing mechanism, controls the rate at which advancing belts advance a queue of carton blanks toward the magazine.