Rod Stewart Loves His Model Train Landscapes (oh yes he does)

[Dan Gould]

Took 26 years and the pictures are unbelievable (and I've never cared about this stuff myself):

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7678617/Rod-Stewarts-secret-hit-track-Veteran-rocker-finally-lets-world-legendary-model-railwa.html?fbclid=IwAR18nQvyqqg8uN0YE9s5uLQ9JocPdanAlZlpk-eGwZguJe8vp5LNtGeGDDc

 

[JSngry]

That's pretty cool.

My granddaughter is not yet 3, and she's loving anything to do with trains. That hopefully has absolutely nothing to do with Rod Stewart except to suggest, maybe, that trains have an appeal that transcends age, gender, and musical predilections.

Now, if "Sir Rod" releases a version of "Baby Shark", that will concern me.

[Chuck Nessa]

My father collected Lionel trains for decades and we still have a bunch. Today we opened up 2 shrink wrapped sets to make sure they work so we can give them to our two grandkids.

[Rooster_Ties]

My dad has always loved trains, his entire life -- the big ones, and model railroads too.  He had a layout in his basement, and also some track up in the attic that literally ran around the outer perimeter of the footprint of the house, under the eaves (on the inside of the house/attic, of course).  He was playing with it, still running trains up there right until the last week he moved out of the house in September.

I've inherited a bit of his interest in trains too, but more so train station architecture, which I love -- so that's where our interests overlap greatly.

My dad (age 92) always has said that he was born 50 years too late, since he only got to experience the last decade of Steam Engines being an active thing when he was a kid and teen (in the mid-to-late 30's, he being born in 1927).

I "like" trains, sure.  But my Dad is still pretty fanatical about them, by and large.  Whenever we go anywhere that there's an active Amtrak station, he always wants to see the trains arriving or departing.  It's an annual thing at Thanksgiving, when we go up to small town Galesburg IL (where we visit my cousins), and we plan our whole day (the day after Thanksgiving), making sure we're at the station when the 2 or sometimes 3 passenger trains are passing through town.

[JSngry]

9 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I think a lot of aging rock stars would be happier if they had such wholesome and mundane pastimes.

and I think I'd be happier if they did that rather than make albums of standards!

[Milestones]

Agreed, but he was not the first and probably not the worst.

The trains are very cool!

 

[clifford_thornton]

oh man, this is rad. I used to have a pretty large model railroad layout in the basement that my dad and I built; moved from train obsession to jazz obsession but hey, the memories are still there. 

[mjazzg]

He also helps his fellow enthusiasts

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/20/rod-stewart-donates-10000-model-railway-club-vandalised-market-deeping

 

[ejp626]

I liked the bit in the article where that was one of his requests/demands of concert promoters -- that he have a space set aside to work on his models after shows -- and that a considerable part of the layout was constructed on tour.  (Can you imagine having to have that shipped back home though?)

[Hardbopjazz]

Amazing. 

[Dave James]

Two other (one famous, one infamous) model train enthusiasts.  Frank Sinatra and Hitler's second-in-command, Reichsminister Hermann Göring.  

[Rooster_Ties]

Also, Neil Young!

[Dan Gould]

19 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I liked the bit in the article where that was one of his requests/demands of concert promoters -- that he have a space set aside to work on his models after shows -- and that a considerable part of the layout was constructed on tour.  (Can you imagine having to have that shipped back home though?)

Way better than "10 lbs M&Ms at all venues - all brown ones must be removed".

[Rooster_Ties]

3 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Way better than "10 lbs M&Ms at all venues - all brown ones must be removed".

That had a VERY specific purpose.  Van Halen had a very technically complicated set-up, in terms of the power logistics/requirements, and all kinds of other stuff.  The "brown M&M's" bit in their 50-page contract was SPECIFICALLY to they could quickly tell if a venue had actually read the contract, and therefore (hopefully) provided the necessary tech-setup for their show.  (It didn't "prove" everything was right, but it was a very quick indication at least.  "No Brown M&M's" could mean the difference between a fairly smooth load-in and set-up, or HOURS of last minute work, making sure every last requirement was accounted for, that potentially hadn't been).

And googling just now, it was more than just that.  Pretty serious stuff, actually.

http://www.compliancebuilding.com/2009/08/03/compliance-van-halen-and-brown-mms/

>> Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say “Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . .” This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: “There will be no brown M&M’s in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.”

>> So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.

 

The brown M&M's thing wasn't just some stupid joke, though the story of it on the surface sure sounded like it.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Rooster_Ties

[medjuck]

2 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Also, Neil Young!

IIRC he bought the Lionel train company. 

[JSngry]

WHAT????

 

[clifford_thornton]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

IIRC he bought the Lionel train company. 

correct, or at least hugely invested in it.

[catesta]

I think Young at one time had 20-25% of the company, but is now out of it.

Stewart's setup is amazing.

I have a pre-war Lionel set that belonged to my father and several HO and N trains (Bachmann, Micro, Ahearn) I've had since the late 60's and mid 70s. My father had a respectable layout which included a slot car track in the middle but nothing on a grand scale.