About Us

Trains

Trains: The Magazine of Railroading is one of the world’s leading publications on railroading and trains. We specialize in articles, photos, and video about North American railroads and content on superlative international topics from a North American perspective.

Kalmbach Media founder Al Kalmbach started Trains in 1940. Ever since, Trains staff have delivered the most independent news and commentary on railroading, valuable insights and stunning imagery in monthly magazines, special issues, videos and — more recently — through our websites.

Here's just a selection of products we offer online:

News Wire

A weekday news service that features original reporting from Bill Stephens and Bob Johnston, important updates from the rail heritage and steam locomotive preservation community, as well as digests pulled from regional news outlets around the country and industry news releases.

Jim Wrinn and Steve Sweeney for Trains Newswire

Railfan videos

Drew’s Trackside Adventures, “Postcards”, and Trains Presents are three series of videos we offer that put you side-by-side with Trains staff and contributors on their adventures around the country (sometimes the world!) as they record rail operations and passing trains for your entertainment.

A major metropolitan city with a couple of diesel trains by tall buildings

Archives

Read our very first issue from November 1940 — online. With a new website, we’re able to offer PDF-versions of our entire catalogue of magazines.

Digital