Trains Magazine (1940-today)
At a chaotic time in history — World War II, atomic bombs, the birth of the Cold War — founder Al Kalmbach published the first issue of Trains Magazine. Many great things were happening in the 1940s alongside the many bad. For instance, the Slinky was also invented around this time.
In the transportation industry, passenger trains were the popular choice for long-distance travel — and steam locomotives ruled the rails.
As of 2024, this magazine has circulated for 84 years. This February marks our 1,000th issue, a special expanded edition. The video here celebrates this milestone that not every print publication is capable of obtaining.
Highlights include a section with a 1,000 theme, with articles on …
- A bridge in Germany that sees more than 1,000 trains a day.
- The race to build the first 1,000-horsepower diesel locomotives.
- Union Pacific’s historic order for 1,000 SD70M diesel locomotives in the late 1990s was a $2 billion investment. Did the railroad get its money worth?
- A thousand miles aboard Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited — a train with a rich history.
- A Ben Bachman photo essay on the trains of Seattle’s Salish Sea.
- An article on the 150th anniversary of St. Louis Eads Bridge.
- And, a stunning Gallery section on railroad people.
“I’ll leave you with this thought. Very few magazines make it to 1,000 issues. Perhaps as few as 50 magazines have ever reached this number. Kalmbach Media now has two of them. Thank you for being part of our success story.” — Trains Editor Carl Swanson
My favorite magazine of all time. The first edition I bought was March 1954 when I was nine years old. I then bought it off and on until October 1957 which was the first edition of my long standing subscription which continues to this day! Long live TRAINS!
The lead paragraph of this article places the founding of Trains Magazine in the context of “a chaotic time in history — World War II, atomic bombs, [and] the birth of the Cold War.”
This “context” is a bit of a stretch, considering that Trains had been in print for nearly five years when the alliance between the Soviet Union and the western allies of France, England, and the USA began to unravel with the defeat of Germany in May 1945. The two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in August 1945, and the Pacific war ended soon thereafter. George Orwell first used the term “cold war” in his writings in October 1945.
In my view, a more historically accurate context for that first issue of Trains om November 1940 would be that of a nation in recovery from the worst economic depression in the world’s history, and with the threat of an increasingly global conflict looming. Large parts of Europe, including our ally France, were subjugated by Nazi Germany during early 1940. Britain was fighting alone, suffering from the worst of the Blitz in autumn 1940, as the first issues of Trains Magazine began to roll off the presses.
Relations between the US and Japan took a turn for the worse and would culminate with Pearl Harbor shortly after Trains completed its first year of publication.
In a way, it is extraordinary that A. C. Kalmbach chose the to indulge in his interest in 1:1 scale railroading at a time when so many feared being drawn into the widening global conflict. The more one thinks of it, the more Al’s enthusiasm for Trains Magazine feels like him going out on a limb. I’m glad he did, however. His enthusiasm was well-placed, even if the fledgling magazine was on shaky ground for its first few years.
Those thousand issues of Trains have introduced me to the photography and writings of Lucius Beebe, Richard Steinheimer, Wally Abbey, J. Parker Lamb, William Moedinger, John Gruber, Walter Thrall, Philip Hastings, and of course the inimitable David P. Morgan.
Today’s world is one where traditional print media is in decline, though there are almost countless magazines and online forums competing for rail historians, photographers, and enthusiasts. Trains magazine is still at the top of the heap. Congratulations on a thousand issues!
I just received my issue today. I am really impressed with it, thumbed through the magazine and am looking forward to reading it all. Congratulations Kalmbach and Trains magazine on this accomplishment. The only other publication that I use to subscribe and still follow to a limited extent on line that I know has exceeded a thousand issues is National Geographic.
Congrats to Trainsmag for 1000 issues. Quite an achievement.
One of the most interesting, entertaining and insightful collection of articles since I’ve been a subscriber, which is a very long time.