Here’s a picture of Rod Stewart’s model railway lay-out…It’s terrific.
Rod Stewart is a music industry legend who has sold more than 120 million records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Stewart
It’s based on an idea of urban america from the (railway) machine age. A bit like combining a painting by Charles Sheeler with one by Edward Hopper. (I’ve posted about both those artists and railway painting subjects before).
Rod is interested in the wear-and-tear of the great American city…and is adept at the details of weathering etc. Co-incidentally, one of Rod’s first hit songs was, Dirty Old Town…
The lay-out is based in LA, and has taken 23 years to build, so far.
There are quite a few music business model railway fans – Neil Young and Pete Waterman amongst others.
Here’s the link to the story
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50403561
and to my previous posts about Sheeler and Hopper…
The American city is usually conceptualised as “a shining city on a hill” and has, from the first modern settlements onwards, aspired to utopian status. Sadly, the history of America is suggestive of the corruptions associated with monopoly capitalism, scale and gangsterism. Utopia, recast as Gotham. Rod Stewart understands that nothing is as grand as ruins…
Here is a short post about the disruptions of machine acceleration in relation to American culture.