Dan’s Train Blog

I found an ad somewhere for this magazine Model Railroad News (MRN) and went to their website where I signed up for their “3 free issues” offer. MRN has been published since 1995 so while it was new to me it’s not really a new magazine. 

For this review I looked over their “About MRN” page and decided that this part of their description most accurately describes what Model Railroad News does:

“Model Railroad News provides timely, in-depth coverage of new products, model railroading news, and includes highly regarded product reviews.”

MRN has chosen a pretty tight focus and within this focus I think they do a good job. They do not do “how to build my first 4×8 layout” or “buying my first air brush.” What you find here is lots of news about what manufacturers are doing and the product reviews are detailed and very well photographed.

After reading my three free issues I must agree that MRN’s explicit focus on product reviews and industry news works much better than Model Railroader’s implicit semi-random move in the same direction.

If this sounds interesting to you I recommend you try out the three free issues. I know from corresponding with some people around my “What’s messed up with Model Railroader” series that this magazine could be exactly what they are looking for.