Well … sort of a celebrity. Artist (well, sort of an artist) Chris Burden was featured in an article in this last Sunday’s New York Times, and the main focus of the article was Burden’s fascination for garden railroading live steam – one of his engines, a little 0-4-0, was photographed.
Chris Burden is one of the more unusual artists of modern times. he made his name doing “performance art” (as opposed to paintings or sculpture or photography) of a rather unsettling kind. He would do physically dangerous, almost masochistic stunts, in art galleries and call them art.
He would crawl through a room of broken glass wearing only underpants, and end up bleading profusely. He would have himself suspended in air by way of fishhooks embedded in his skin. And in his most famous “art work” (??) he had himself shot in the arm by a marksman. Most of those events made the news at the time, although rarely was it ever pictured in the newspaper because as a rule he did all of his art while naked (and bleeding, needless to say). The amusing irony of the NY Times feature, given the guy’s history, was Burden’s repeated emphasis on safety and caution when handling live steam locomotives! His latest art works are enormous models of bridges made of steel that almost looks like it is from an Erector set. The one pictured in the Times actually looks pretty neat. Anyway here is another fellow model railroader and you can clip the article and tell your friends – look, see, I’m not nuts, here is another guy who likes model trains. He also crawls through rooms of broken glass and has himself suspended, naked, with fish hooks in his skin …
Dave Nelson
I know of the more famous celebrity model railroaders…Gary Coleman, Neil Young, Mandy Patinkin. Can anyone think of some more?
Somehow I don’t think that would chnage anything, except maybe to think i’m more nuts. [:p]
jay.
Hey, I don’t feel so bad now–all I do on stage is sing about monsters, set fire to fireworks strapped to my body, beat myself on the head with garbage cans, and occasionally engage in simulated evisceration of my friends! And–I play with trains!!
Tom Snyder, Sally Jessie Raphaiel, Vaughn Monroe (a famous singer in the 40s), Rod Stewart, Micheal Gross (the father on “Family Ties”)-in fact, he made a tape for Kalmbach recently, called “Building your first Model Railroad” or something. And he was on the “Today” show on NBC a couple years ago, talking about model railroading.
And Frank Sinatra used to collect Lionel, Walt Disney used to like trains, but I don’t know if he was into model railroading, though. But I know he had a “live steam” train at his house. And I think he had a private railroad car.
Also, in the 50s, ther was a Disney movie called “The Great Locomotive Chase” which was based on an incident during the Civil War, and he went to great pains to insure the trains were accurate, even borrowing locomotives from the B & O museum in Baltimore.
(he was also an anti-semetic, but that’s another story!!)
When you mention Disney, don’t forget animator Ward Kimball, who died a couple of years ago. He had a huge toy train collection, not to mention the full sized Grizzly Flats.
Another famous train collector I saw on Discovery: Pete Waterman, english pop producer, made many #1 hits in the 80’s, He collects modeltrains & the real thing, he once owned the famous UK “Flying Scotsman” and ownes several steam and other engines, would be interesting to take a peek in his collection
Regarding Walt Disney and his backyard live-steam railroad, someone should really approach the current Disney company to reproduce, or give permission for reproducing, the home movies of the Walt Disney RR. I have seen parts of the existing footage and it is quite extraordinary. Portions of it chronicle the building of the “layout”, including making tunnels and cuts, building rolling stock at the Disney studios, and a lot of footage of these large riding-trains operating in Disney’s rear yard. Apparently there were quite a number of individuals at Disney interested in trains at the time and many appear in the films. Overall, it was quite an accomplishment, considering the time period in which it was built.
CNJ831
Reguarding Micheal Gross, he has made several PBS specials, Talk shows, Video’s and other such things for Model railroading. he is also the official spokeman of either the NMRA or Kalmbach (can’t remember which one off the top of my head, it’s early).
Jay
Not only is Neil Young a model railroader, but he was also the part owner of Lionel and is the inventor of the Lionel Train Master Command Control system. He also brings a Lionel layout with him on his tours.
I saw on a documentry about Phil Collins, of the group Genesis, also has large layout in his basement that he retreats to for some quality time with his son. It started as a toy for his son a grew into a layout that takes up most of the basement, seeing the size of his “house” it must be one mother of a layout.
There is a picture of Michael Douglass’ visit to my local model railroad shop i guess hes into it too
Kirk Douglas would take Michael over to Walt Disneys house to ride on his backyard rail road. Walts original shop, an old barn, is in LA at a live steam park. Disneys backyard rail road was how Disney came up with the idea for Disneyland.
Anybody who wants to see the Ward Kimball collection cam come to the Orange Empire Rialroad Museum in Perris California. It’s kept in an enginhouse specially built for it and has Mr. Kimball’s gallows turntable out front.
a lesser known Marx brother, “Gummo”, was also into model railroading, and had an O guage layout in his house.