The graffiti community began replicating graffiti on model trains in the late 1990's. Early attempts were experimental and practiced by writers only as a novelty. In 2008, the organisation, Relics of the Rails partnered with graffiti brand Mad Clout to host the first all railroad inspired art exhibition titled: The Steel Wheels Show in Atlanta, Georgia. The exhibition was a succes and it inspired artists around the nation to begin applying their graffiti onto model train cars. By this time, graffiti on freight trains in North America was a normal occurence.

With traffic flowing between Mexico, The United States, and Canada, non-graffiti writers in the model railroad community started to see graffiti every time they looked at real trains, wherever they were on the continent. However many considered graffiti vandalism and destruction of the railroad equipment they cherished. Partially accepting graffiti as now part of the landscape, some reluctantly began to incorporate the graffiti aesthetic into their model tarin layouts.

Because traditional model railroaders lack the skill to paint authentic graffiti, they began photographing graffiti and printing it on decals sized to fit their models. Over the years there have been some commercial attempts at scale model graffiti decals as well as the commisioning of graffiti artists to paint model cars. Graffiti artists also began trading and collecting model rail cars painted by their favorite writers as an alternative to canvases and other collectibles.

Now armed with the ability to produce authentic art in just about any scale, it was not long before these extremely resourceful graffiti writers infiltrated the model railroad community producing their own advanced models. While the model railroad and graffiti communities still exists largely independent of one another there is a space where the two overlap, and it is from this space where some of the most spectaculair models are created.