A longstanding philosophy of modeling is manifest in its editorial features of layout design and operation, in which the model is viewed as a three-dimensional and temporal compression of the real world, so that, for example, the motive power, freight, trackage and scenery of a real-world railroad are formed into a layout which captures the spirit of not only the equipment and region of the railroad but also its purpose and how it operates.

Though they originally saw it as a sideline business to their commercial printing operations, soon they were devoting seven days a week to the venture.

The magazine was well received by model railroaders, and the young publisher carried the entire first press run (272 copies) by streetcar to be mailed.

World War II introduced paper rationing, which dampened the growth of the Kalmbach Publishing Company.

The magazine had to relocate 4 times, the original location was on 545 S. 84th Street (now a car wash) and later relocated to 1027 N. 7th Street (now part of Milwaukee Public Television and Milwaukee Area Technical College), from 1989 to 2024, they moved to 21027 Crossroads Circle in nearby Waukesha and in 2024, Kalmbach recently sold their building to Silgan Containers and the staff moving to nearby Brookfield, Wisconsin.

[7] The Milwaukee, Racine and Troy model railroad was demolished when Kalmbach sold their building at 21027 Crossroads Circle and moved to Brookfield, Wisconsin, following the magazine's purchase by Firecrown media.

[9] The show introduces new products, offers modeling tips, and a viewer mail segment (along with the occasional blooper at the end).

Past MR articles are also collected in PDF form and distributed via the magazine's website and available through their digital archive.

Model Railroader staff members participated in the production of the Dream-Plan-Build video series,[10] which was offered by subscription.