Rod, I salute your train set

[John Ashworth]

Three articles on this topic. Comments on the uk.railway newsgroup include, 'Funny, I have know he was a railway modeller since I read it in Melody Maker back in the 1960s, so it's not such a secret' and, 'FFS What is the world coming to? Penny Lancaster is there, dressed in next to nothing, saying "come to bed Rod I need a good seeing to"..... and Rod just carries on playing with his bloody train set.'

1. Rod, I salute your train set

As hard-living pop stars have long found, nothing can match the miniature buzz of a model railway

Annalisa Barbieri
Thursday October 25, 2007
The Guardian

What a service prejudices can sometimes provide. Rod Stewart is pictured with a copy of Model Railroader in his car and easy headlines are made, "Do ya think I'm sexy now?" being the easiest of all. The subtext is that having an interest in model railways is unattractive, nerdish, maybe even a prerequisite for being a serial killer. Personally, I welcome the spotlight on Rod's exquisite HO-scale reproduction of New York's Grand Central station of the 1940s.

Liking model railways has never been something that equals cool. Enthusiasts often get bad press, always from people who know nothing about it. But let me tell you something: it's a wonderful world. You go to exhibitions and talk yourself ragged about the best way to recreate a miniature thatched roof if you don't have easy access to oriental hair (which, once dyed, is perfect thatch material, as the follicle is round). Plumber's hemp is the common alternative, but it can lack something. The fact that I may or may not have the latest Mulberry handbag holds no currency here. Instead I watch the jaws that drop when I mention that I have the entire set of Hornby Live Steam locomotives sitting on my shelves at home. Or that I attempted to build Walschaerts valve gear while breastfeeding my daughter (breasts and trains in the same sentence never fails to make you friends). My particular gauge for model-making is N-gauge, which is tiny, 2mm to the foot or a scale of 1:148 in the UK (1:160 in the US and Europe). Nearly all model railway enthusiasts have a gauge - the width between the rails - that they're "into", Rod's is HO, half-O which is an American gauge and corresponds to a scale of 1:87.

N-gauge allows you to build bigger landscapes in a smaller space, useful if you don't have a mansion. A great part of the fun - and that is the right word - is not just the trains and the huge romance once associated with them, but in contextualising the scene with shops, people, signs and nature. You can recreate a perfect little world within an imperfect world that can sometimes seem too big. Escapism? For sure, but what's wrong with that? It beats drinking, clubbing, taking drugs or other escapist pursuits that are seen as "cool". A sign of not being able to cope with real life? Perhaps, but who can, all the time?

And no one could accuse Rod Stewart of being a failure either; of having to take to life in miniature to make up for a lack of success in the big, real world. Stewart has company in the music industry with his hobby. Before he became a record producer, Pete Waterman was a locomotive fireman, and started his own model railway company, Just Like the Real Thing, after he couldn't get the O-gauge parts he wanted. Neil Young bought a share in Lionel trains - the trains Steven Spielberg had as a boy. Frank Sinatra had a Lionel layout in his home - and you don't get much harder than Frank - in 1995 when the company got into trouble.

In truth, having a model railway encapsulates lots of things. There's the building of it, the recreation of something in miniature, which is magical. You are compelled to mental stillness. It requires patience. You can choose a particular landscape, station, or time that interests you. You learn about electrics. You learn about history through detail, building (I can offer a choice of Flemish or English bond brickwork), engineering, or how to find the perfect maroon - crimson lake - for a Midland carriage. I really can't think of a hobby that encapsulates more worthy pursuits. So I get annoyed when it's dismissed, in a word, as "anoraky", because, frankly, it should be cherished and promoted. Model railways enthusiasts are neither sad, nor mad. In fact, we're just mad enough to realise the beauty is in the detail.

2. Rod Stewart is a model railway enthusiast

By Nigel Reynolds
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 24/10/2007
telegraph.co.uk

Rod Stewart’s models have tended to be of one type - blonde, leggy and on his arm.

But the one he has kept hidden for many years was revealed yesterday, and it was steamier than anyone might have imagined.

His secret is a spectacular model railway set. Laid out at his mansion in Beverley Hills, it is a perfect 1:87 scale model of New York’s Grand Central Station in the 1940s.

It comprises 100 ft of track, scores of period locomotives and carriages with a backdrop of skyscrapers, streets, railway buildings and hundreds of tiny passengers.

The husky-voiced Scottish singer, on marriage number three to the model Penny Lancaster, allowed Model Railroader, the world’s biggest model railway magazine, to feature his pride and joy on the front cover of its latest edition.

The 62-year-old rock 'n’ railer, as he may now become known, has long craved recognition for his private hobby. He said several years ago that such an honour would “mean more to me than the cover of Rolling Stone”.

He explained: “I’m a great model railway enthusiast and I’m building a huge layout over there in California so that takes up a little bit of time and football takes up a little bit of time.”

It is just as well that Stewart, whose previous blonde model lovers have included Kelly Emberg and Rachel Hunter (his second wife), has sold 250 million records and had 62 hit singles. Recreating Grand Central Station is not child’s play.

The largest train station in the world, it has 44 platforms, 67 tracks, a cavernous concourse with clock faces made from opal and a clock on the front of the station that is the largest example of Tiffany glass in the world.

If the women in his life in California ever thought Stewart’s hobby was, well, a little anoraky, he has always been able to escape to his home in Essex where he keeps a railway set - a lay-out of the old English East Coast line.

Model trains are not just for men with sheds and Stewart is in good company. Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and Peter Snow are fellow train set enthusiasts.

But the ultimate collector is the pop tycoon Pete Waterman, the business brain behind the 1980s partnership of Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

Some years ago he bought his own train company, taking on the British Rail special-trains service. He also renovates trains from the 1950s and 1960s and used to own the Flying Scotsman.

3. The truth about Rod Stewart's rock'n'roll lifestyle

Tim Dowling
Thursday October 25, 2007
The Guardian

In an era when middle-aged men unashamedly purchase electric guitars in hopes of recapturing a lost youth much cooler than the one they actually lost, how does the older professional rock star, for whom a vintage Fender Stratocaster is just one more deductible business expense, salve his weary soul? For Rod Stewart, the answer is: model railways.

Those men who are about to look up from their newspapers and say, "If you ever catch me playing with a toy train set, please shoot me," should be advised to hold their tongues, for one never knows what one will get up to past the age of 50, the traditional threshold of unembarrassability. It's unlikely that Rod himself, in his early days with the Faces, ever imagined that he would one day own and operate a 1500sq ft, 1:87 scale model of Grand Central Station and environs (circa 1940), complete with 5ft skyscrapers and 9,000 feet of track. Nor, perhaps, would he picture it appearing on the front cover of a popular model railway enthusiasts' magazine, or himself saying, "It means more to me to be on the cover of Model Railroader than to be on the cover of a music magazine."

Rod Stewart is not the only celebrity model-rail freak out there, although for caution's sake we should perhaps describe them as "alleged celebrity model rail freaks", since a false identification would surely constitute some form of defamation. One website lists 50 famous model railroaders, nearly half of whom, tellingly, are dead, and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of the libel courts. Hermann Göring was rumoured to have constructed an extensive Marklin layout for himself. Johnny Cash favoured Lionel trains, and appeared in their advertisements in the 1970s. Neil Young is even more deeply involved in the hobby; he owns a 20% stake in Lionel LLC. Roger Daltrey, Phil Collins, Lionel Richie and Bruce Springsteen have also, at one time or another, dabbled.

The lesson is clear: no matter how old you are, it's probably a good idea to think long and hard before you walk into a music shop and buy that second hand six-string. Rock'n'roll is a crazy ride - you never know where you'll end up.

[Steve Appleton]

Link to original article that caused the fuss in 'Model Railroader' magazine:
http://www.trains.com/mrr/default.aspx?c=i&id=2&iid=262