“I’m so proud”: The train set that took Rod Stewart 23 years to build
Picture it: a house in Los Angeles, the sun beaming through the windows and caressing the hallways, providing a sun-kissed tinge. It’s empty. The furniture gathers dust, the kitchen is devoid of anyone, and the garden is derelict to the point that the water in the pool has begun to evaporate. The only person living in the house sits in the attic, his grinning face an artificial sun that sits above his own self-made town. Sir, or should we say mayor, Rod Stewart.
Whether you are a fan or not, Rod Stewart has done a lot in his career that he can be proud of. James Brown once called him the greatest living white soul singer, with a voice that is husky yet can carry the most complicated of tones. It’s a beautiful thing to hear, and it has been the driving force behind more hits than most artists could ever dream of.
However, if you were to ask Stewart about his best achievement, it wouldn’t be confined to his music career but rather a model railway city that he spent over two decades making. He put together skyscrapers, gutters, warehouses, windows, train tracks, and trains to bring his city to life. It now sits in the attic of his house in LA, but when he was making it, the village would come on tour with him.
You often hear a lot of rockstars demanding things from the hotels they are staying at, whether it’s bottles of champagne, spare TVs so they can throw one out the window and the finest food within a 50-mile radius. However, you rarely hear of artists asking for a spare hotel room so they have somewhere for their model skyscrapers to dry.
“We would tell them in advance and they were really accommodating,” he said, “Taking out the beds and providing fans to improve air circulation and ventilation.”
If you were to peruse around Rod Stewart’s model village, you would find various sections. Luxury is in some places, and then derelict scenery is in others. Stewart’s city is based on a combination of New York and Chicago, both of which have sections of beauty and pieces left to rot. As a well-travelled man, Stewart could create these various sections of a city.
“I find beauty in what everyone else sees as ugly,” he said, “Rugged skyscrapers, beaten-up warehouses, things that are very run down.”
Despite the amount of time that it took Stewart to put the city together, he was never going to stop once he got started. “When I take on something creative like this, I have to give it 110%,” he said, “For me, it’s addictive. I started, so I just had to finish. I’m lucky I had the room. If I’d have realised at the start it would have taken so long, I’d have probably said, ‘No! No! Nah!”
Stewart appeared on the cover of Railway Modeller magazine as the mayor of his made-up town. Forget all of the musical accolades; this is Stewart’s crowning glory, and nothing could take that away from him.
