ABOUT RAILMODEL JOURNAL By Robert Schleicher
Railmodel Journal has a worldwide reputation for providing the most authoritative articles on modeling freight cars, passenger cars, track planning, locomotive performance, industry, scenery and operations. Every issue includes step-by-step feature articles that illustrate and describe every step to help you learn the techniques to create realistic models on a realistic model railroad. Every issue also has at least one professionally illustrated photo tour of one of the finest model railroads in the world so you can see how good it can get. Because modeling from the prototype is the theme of the magazine, most of the articles are suitable for HO, N, O, S, or G scale. Our goal is to provide both the inspiration to create a realistic model railroad and the hands-on step-by-step information on how you can do it.

“The Journal” is a 68 to 76-page monthly magazine, with an average of about 23 color pages an issue. The magazine features in-depth photo-illustrated articles that are focused exclusively on realistic scale model railroading. The only advertising that appears in the magazine is for new products, so the proportion of pages of editorial material is usually greater than any other model railroad magazine---we always try to give you “more magazine” with Railmodel Journal.

Scale Model Railroading
“The Journal” is written and illustrated by the acknowledged “best” model railroaders, modelers whose goal is to accurately recreate railroading in miniature. This is a magazine that deals exclusively with models. There are dozens of prototype photos in each issue, but each and every photo is linked to the ready-built model, kit, or components that you can use to recreate that real-life car, locomotive, structure or scene in miniature. The hundreds of prototype freight car photos, dozens of locomotive photos, photos of yards-full of cars and scenes from real railroads that we publish each year are carefully selected to serve as the guides you need for adding details, applying decals, weathering, and using other modeling techniques with existing models---models from every era from 1900 to today. Every issue has comprehensive articles on freight cars to help you make
ready-built or kit-built rolling stock into accurate replicas of the real thing, right down to the numbers and weathering patterns for the specific year and locale you are modeling. You will also see how to get that equipment moving in combinations---in trains---that match the real thing. And we show you how to create replicas of real scenes, including accurate replicas of prototype trees, over accurately modeled tracks and right-of-way, past replicas of real-life structures built from existing kits, conversions of kits or scratchbuilt structures (using the simple “scribe-and-snap” techniques), to provide the “setting” for those realistic trains. The magazine also includes articles that explain how to operate model trains exactly like the prototype, moving cars in and out of industries (that are served by those freight cars), and of course, modeling industries that are appropriate to the real time and real place you are recreating. We publish regular articles on modeling and operating passenger cars and trains, again using existing models, to recreate the passenger service of the real railroads. The Magazine for Modelers
We publish monthly reports on how out-of-the-box model locomotives perform. these Performance Reports are the most thorough reports in the hobby, with a continuity that stretches back over forty years. That continuity allows
you to compare the performance of the newest locomotive to the locomotives you already own or to any made in any previous year.

We do everything we can to make “The Journal” the authoritative magazine of
the hobby. It is never, ever, the “final authority.” The editorial policy about every article in this magazine is that it is a “Part I,” even it does not state it. We always hope to receive updates, corrections, more information, more facts, more photographs and other feedback from experienced modelers so we can publish supplementary articles. Many of the “break through” techniques in the hobby in the last decade appeared first in “The Journal.” Our readers, people just like you, are also our contributors. Railmodel Journal is the gathering place for all those who really do want to create a realistic model railroad. Join our group. Subscribe.