Move over, Neil Young. There’s another extremely rich classic rocker who’s got a serious obsession with model trains. Rod Stewart has just revealed a massive and meticulously self-constructed model train layout in the attic of his Los Angeles home.
Measuring 1,500 square feet, Stewart has named the fictitious 1940s-era American metropolis Grand Street And Three Rivers City. It features hundreds of buildings, a railway station, period cars and lorries, and is surrounded by a rolling landscape.
“It’s the landscape I like. Attention to detail, extreme detail, is paramount,” Stewart told Railway Modeller for the cover story of its December 2019 issue (via Daily Mail). “There shouldn’t be any unsightly gaps or pavements that are too clean.”
Stewart has been working on the layout for more than twenty years, often taking materials and tools on tour to attend to in hotel rooms. “We’d tell them in advance and they were really accommodating, taking out the beds and providing fans to improve air circulation and ventilation,” Stewart explained of his efforts on the road.
The singer has been relatively low-key about his penchant for trains over the years, so he gets a kick out of stunning his guests by switching on the railroad and bringing it all suddenly to life.
“When I take on something creative like this, I have to give it a 110 percent,” he said casually of the nearly three-decade endeavor. “For me, it’s addictive. I started, so I just had to finish. I’m lucky I had the room. If I’d realized at the start it would have taken so long, I’d have probably said, ‘No! No! Nah!'”
See pictures of the layout here.
