Rod’s workin’ on the railroad

Veteran rocker proud to complete massive mid-century model railway

Rod Stewart — known for shaking his caboose and singing Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? — is the face of Railway Modeller magazine’s December issue for the detailed mid-century train set that takes up a chunk of the star’s Los Angeles mansion.

When BBC Radio 2 host Jeremy Vine suggested Stewart couldn’t possibly have built the highly detailed model railroad on his own, the 74-year-old phoned in to Vine’s show to defend his role as the conductor of the passion project.

“I would say 90 per cent of it I built myself,” Stewart told the program.

“The only thing I wasn’t very good at — and still am not — is the electricals, so I had someone else do that.”

Stewart’s devotion to model trains may come as a surprise considering his jet-setting, rock ’n’ roll lifestyle and past reputation for partying hard.

But it turns out that for 23 years, the British singer has been spending his time off from recording albums and touring the world perfecting — down to the last detail — the roughly 38-by-seven-metre model U.S. industrial city.

“It’s not built on any prototypical city, but it’s a cross between Chicago and New York,” he told Vine. “Obviously I spent lots of time in Chicago and New York, being on tour. And it’s set around the time I was born, 1945, just after the war.”

Stewart even had an attic built onto his Beverly Hills home specifically to house the expansive miniature city.

There are skyscrapers, factories, suburbs, grimy pavements, dockyards, ships and even garbage on the streets.

And as incredible as it looks, the sound effects are just as elaborate, including city sounds, people talking and birds singing.

“A lot of people laugh at it as being a silly hobby,” he told Vine. “But it’s a wonderful hobby.”

Stewart even used to take pieces on tour and worked on them during his down time, reserving an extra room for the unfinished miniatures, he said in his Railway Modeller interview.

“We would tell them in advance and they were really accommodating, taking out the beds and providing fans to improve air circulation and ventilation,” he told the publication. The common wisdom is that model railroads are never completed, said Stewart, but his is done and there’s not much more he can add.

“I’m going to try to bring it to England,” Stewart told Vine. “But it’s (almost an) impossibility.”