[HN Gopher] The pop and rock greats who love model railways
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The pop and rock greats who love model railways
Author : pseudolus
Score : 42 points
Date : 2022-03-23 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| MobileVet wrote:
| Model railway is a really fun hobby. I built an outdoor railroad
| with my father over several summers while I was growing up.
|
| He had since built a very extensive indoor O scale layout. The
| quality of the landscape / scenery is really high. Unfortunately
| we are now presented with the 'so what do we do when he passes?'
| Question.
|
| He has started to look for a museum to donate it to and trying to
| offload engines before he passes. It isn't easy to sell these
| days, definitely a niche hobby.
|
| Edit: grammar / typos
| eggoa wrote:
| It's sort of surprising, but it's a group of weird, creative
| people with tons of money and free time. I'm sure they're doing
| tons of odd stuff, model trains among them. (Once they're off
| drugs, that is.)
| ushakov wrote:
| that's a weird obsession
|
| i'd spend all that money on musical gear instead!
| InitialLastName wrote:
| When you're Neil Young or Rod Stewart, you don't pay for music
| gear unless you try very hard. The manufacturers will give it
| to you for free on the off chance that you get spotted using it
| (those musicians also tend to be very careful about what gear
| they get photographed using, due to sponsorship agreements).
|
| I can absolutely see the appeal of spending your money in an
| industry where nobody cares who you are or what products you
| use.
| CPLX wrote:
| That's true for NEW music gear. Sort of. Musical instruments
| specifically. Top end recording gear not so much, since like
| who else buys it except for people who record professionally.
|
| But for the most part these guys are buying vintage/classic
| stuff and paying astronomical amounts of money for it, since
| pretty much all people on the planet who care about guitars
| or tube preamps are chasing the same couple models.
| damontal wrote:
| There's a documentary on Keith Richards on Netflix. He has
| so many vintage guitars he doesn't even know what he has.
| adolph wrote:
| Well you know he probably picked them up when they were
| new
|
| Thats the advantage of growing old
| shagie wrote:
| > I can absolutely see the appeal of spending your money in
| an industry where nobody cares who you are or what products
| you use.
|
| Many years ago, I was affiliated with a permeant lan gaming
| store (this was before everyone had high speed internet -
| which was the downfall of the store when it became available)
| that was down the road from the state capital.
|
| The store was next to another one who's owner was known in
| certain circles of politics - but it was more a "known in the
| circles" rather than "active in the circles"... anyways...
|
| One day, a well dressed young man came around a lunch break
| time and asked about the video games and playing them and
| then came back after working hours and played some lan games
| for a bit.
|
| When he left, the neighbor shop owner came over and asked if
| we knew who that was - turned out to be the speech writer or
| press person for the governor at the time.
|
| He often came back and the guess of the appeal (beyond
| playing games) was twofold. (1) None of the other patrons of
| the shop cared - they were mostly high school and college
| kids. (2) Once on line, no one knew who he was.
|
| So yep - spending money where no one cares who you are or
| what you do where you would be noteworthy outside can have
| its appeal.
| helloooooooo wrote:
| Sebastian Bach loves model trains, there is even a documentary
| about it on Netflix, called Friends of the Road.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Isn't that the name of the episode of trailer park boys
| starring him and model trains as well?
| djohnston wrote:
| I was afraid that reference would be too low brow for the HN
| crowd but definitely recommend this episode of TPB.. "I hear
| there are some _bitchin_ trains in Bangor "
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Comedy of their stature should never be considered low
| brow. They're geniuses.
| Ftuuky wrote:
| Yep, used to smuggle cannabis across the US-Canada border,
| IIRC.
| albatross13 wrote:
| He almost fought Patrick Swayze at a train convention, too.
| s1mon wrote:
| I'm not sure what the status of Neil Young's train layout is, but
| I worked with him on his Pono project and got to see the layout
| and the full scale real train cars which were next to the
| building with the layout. As far as I know he sold the property
| (~500 acres on the SF peninsula). The trains were sort of for his
| son. Neil was also part owner of Lionel.
| abraae wrote:
| A terrifying rabbit hole if ever there was one.
|
| > instead of wondering where I should put a cymbal, I'm thinking:
| 'Does that tree work there? Is that house too close to the
| railway line?' It ticks exactly the same boxes."
|
| These pursuits seem very dangerous for some technically minded
| people. I built a system for monitoring the levels in our water
| tanks. Crappy solutions are available for a few bucks, but they
| didn't suit me. It grew into a multi-user cloud based system that
| took perhaps a year or so part time to complete. It does its job
| perfectly but there's no way I can justify that time (and I knew
| it at the time). I just had no choice but to do it to a high
| standard.
| tetsusaiga wrote:
| I'm into scale military models, not railroads, but it's the same
| thing at heart.
|
| The "rockstar modeler" phenomenon they're talking about here is
| amusing and very real, because if you're not into it you might
| not realize modeling is such a closeted hobby. Almost every
| modeler I know (all of whom, through the internet), makes every
| effort to avoid telling anyone about the hobby, and we all do it
| instinctively. It's funny because it's not like model-makers are
| some classically oppressed group, but we certainly act like we
| are. Maybe its childhood trauma lurking deep in our subconscious.
| Maybe it's just cognitive dissonance between who we really are,
| and the face we present to the world. I don't know.
|
| But anyway, that's the sort of deeper significance to this
| article, and why it's so funny (or cool, for some of us) to have
| rockstars of all people who are into modeling.
| ykevinator2 wrote:
| They found another way to avoid work.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Wait, Eddie Izzard is a comedian, right?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Counts as a recording artist, I suppose? The article somewhat
| goes off the rails into just covering "famous people who do
| model trains".
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| He did "sing" one of the most brilliant parts in 2007 film
| 'Across the Universe'
|
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ahx9ckqIw]
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Trippy!
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