Model railways as art?

[rapidotrains]

Hi all,

 

Here in Toronto we are in the middle of an international arts festival called Luminato. I had the privilege of being a part of it... or more specifically my model trains were!

 

I've always been interested in the intersection of model trains and art. So many layouts I have seen would be given pride of place in the Tate were they created by an established "fine" artist as opposed to a bloke in his loft.  And so many layout builders that I regard as artists never see themselves as such.

 

I've often heard "well I'm not much of a landscape painter so ignore the rubbish backscene" as I'm looking at one of the most phenomenal photo-realistic paintings I've ever seen, blending seamlessly into the foreground scenery.

 

So two aims of this post.  First, I want to share with you the whole experience of merging art and trains in the Luminato Festival.  I've pasted the relevant section of Rapido's latest newsletter below. If it doesn't work properly, you can view it here: http://www.rapidotrains.com/rapidonews57.html

 

Secondly, I'd love to hear your experiences of model railways as art, or your experiences encountering model railways that really should be considered art but the builder has no clue.

 

Best regards,

 

Jason

 

The original advertising brochure for The Lost Train

Luminato's The Lost Train

For the last few months I have been very busy preparing for something I couldn't tell you about. As it's just ended, I'm really glad that I can finally spill the beans.

Luminato Festival is an international fine arts festival that takes place in Toronto every June. Events include live music, readings, dance, performances, art installations, film, etc. The vast majority of Luminato events happen in and around the downtown area. This year something special happened up in the suburb of Thornhill. 

Brainstorming meeting, March 2014.
From left: Kid Koala, Fred Morin (Joe Beef), Jason Shron
Photo courtesy Caroline Hollway.

The Lost Train took place in a secret location. It was a food, music and railway experience hosted by world-famous chef Fred Morin from Joe Beef restaurant, world-famous scratch DJ Kid Koala, and some guy who has a train in his basement. For me, working with these two guys who are so well known for their art - worldwide - was humbling indeed.

Passengers were picked up at the famous Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto and taken by limousine to a secret train-related location. They were led, blindfolded, from the limousine to a VIA train car... which happened to be VIA coach 5647 that I built in my basement! Because the blindfolds were put on well before they arrived at my house, few people had any clue where they actually were.

I wonder what the neighbours thought!

In the coach, passengers were treated to a sumptuous meal designed specifically for the event by Fred. The meals comprised small portions to fit the confined space of the coach and the courses evoked the spirit of on-board meals of the past. Located in Montreal, Fred's Joe Beef is one of the hottest restaurants in Canada, and he has recently expanded with a new restaurant on the same street, Le Vin Papillon. Fred is known for his unusual food combinations and their resulting out-of-this-world tastes. He's also an author and TV star, sharing the spotlight with his partner, Dave McMillan, on Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. Most importantly, Fred loves VIA and CN trains just as much as I do.

Passengers enjoy a five-star meal in Coach #5647

While passengers were eating their meals and getting to know each other in the rather cozy (knees-knocking) atmosphere of the coach, Kid Koala jockeyed train-themed music from a pair of turntables set up in the luggage rack. In the background you could still hear the sounds of the train that I always pump through hidden speakers. Servers in 1980s VIA-inspired uniforms kept the passengers well fed and well imbibed.

Server Tia Teeft brings part of the first course into coach 5647.
The eagle-eyed will recognize that she is using a 1980s-vintage VIA tray.

Amazingly, all of the food was prepared in our suburban, 1987-era kosher kitchen. Fred and his team of experienced chefs (led by caterer Raegan Steinberg) transformed our kitchen and family room into a professional gourmet food factory.

Chef Fred Morin prepares the Shron kitchen for its temporary transformation.

As the passengers were eating dessert, the chef joined them in the coach to tell them about their meal and explain some of the thought that went into The Lost Train experience and his co-operation with Kid Koala to create a food-music-train event. My involvement at this stage was still a secret. People still had no clue where they were, except that it was part of a train car.

The chef explains his art.
Boy did we go through a lot of VIA glasses in there.

After their meal, the passengers were led down the hall to the other part of my basement - namely the HO scaleKingston Subdivision. Here I revealed that they were, in fact, inside my house in suburbia. The reactions were amazing! Most people had thought we were in a museum or a rented theatre space. Several people assumed we were in a VIA or CN office building! Here I took them through the process of resurrecting coach 5647 by showing them slides in their very own souvenir Viewmasters!

The Lost Train passengers learn how you, too, can build a train in your basement!

I demonstrated the model railroad by running my Turbo on some temporary track between Oshawa and Guildwood. I loved watching their reactions to the unfinished model railroad - some people saw the room as a work of art in and of itself, and others were brought back to the memories of their childhood train sets or taking their kids to train shows and clubs. It was fairly unanimous - everyone agreed that I am nuts and Sidura is a saint. I passed the floor over to Kid Koala, who performed a train-themed piece on his turntables that he specially composed for this event.

Kid Koala scratches the blues while first-class Turbo passengers watch from the dome.

Kid Koala is a scratch DJ (or "turntablist" in hoity-toity circles). He's performed at venues all over the world including Madison Square Garden and the Glastonbury Festival, where he's headed in a few days. I was floored by the captivating music he can create simply by modifying sounds on turntables. 

He not only demonstrated his art; he also explained how it's done and let the passengers have a try. Most of the passengers, which included television personalities, writers and one governor general, had never even seen a scratch DJ in action before and now they got to try it for themselves. Watching a former representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II scratching disks on my model railroad is something I will never forget. Not ever.

Spinning discs for The Lost Train

The schedule was gruelling - much more so for Fred and Kid Koala and the administrative team than for me. I had done several weeks of long hours and hard work to get the basement ready before the event, but during the event I was just needed for the last half hour of each performance. I had time to put together the FPA-4 video and this newsletter in between my appearances. Everyone else was on their feet the whole time. We brought 12 groups of eight passengers each through The Lost Train experience. That was four groups per day for three days.

Two exhausted guys take a break from One Crazy Train...

Behind the scenes, Caroline Hollway was our boss. She organized everything and kept everything - and everyone - in line. There were as many as 20 or 25 people in my house at one time! And between shows there was a lot to set up and plenty of fires to put out (thankfully none in the kitchen). With no prior planning, the Heywood-Wakefield train seats in our living room became the mobile office. (The site office was the guest room in the basement - often with three people at a time, squished on the hide-a-bed, using their mobiles and laptops simultaneously!)

Jorn Weisbrodt, Luminato's Artistic Director, uses the living room train seats as his mobile office...

...until he's evicted by Caroline Hollway, who was running our show.

One of the most rewarding things for me, as a life-long VIA fan and lover of old VIA stuff, was seeing things like old VIA trays and cutlery being used again, in service, on a train. It really felt like we were bringing 5647 to life. Although it didn't move, it was boarded by passengers who experienced in it, eight at a time, for over an hour. In essence, this crazy full-size train in the basement has come full circle. It started life as an artifact taking passengers on journeys across the country, and now in resurrected form it has taken passengers on a journey again. This journey may not have resulted in an arrival at a new physical destination, but it was a culinary, auditory and experiential journey nevertheless. It was one that few of the passengers will ever forget.

Old VIA and CN trays do what they were designed to do for the first time in over 20 years!

I have to thank Dan and Mike for holding the fort for me while I was preparing for The Lost Train. I was away for days at a time, and for much of May I was hardly at the office. Nothing makes you work on your layout more than knowing you have 100 guests coming through on a fixed date and it has to look presentable by then.

My friends, John Chipperfield and Tom Fetherston, came to my house often and we worked hard erecting the helix (we needed Dan for that!) and building the second deck. Jeff Loach came by to help lay track and Gaston Moreau provided me with loads upon loads of trees. He makes amazing trees.

The great thing is that this push now means that we will probably be able to start operating the upper two decks of the Kingston Sub next year. In July I will take out the temporary track I laid on the second deck and start constructing the third. I'm working on a detailed update to the Kingston Sub web site to show how we built the helix and the middle deck. It should be ready in the next few weeks.

The Turbo passes through a hastily-scenicked section of the middle deck.

This truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and one that I will never forget. My background is in the visual arts, and to be a part of a major art event in my city is a great honour. As a bonus, I made some very good friends in the process. After seeing my Turbo run, fellow train nut Chef Fred has now decided to take the plunge into model railroading. That's another one converted!

I owe Fred Morin, Kid Koala, Caroline Hollway, Jorn Weisbrodt, and everyone at Luminato a huge debt of gratitude. Together, we brought VIA coach 5647 to life and brought an abundance of joy and culinary delights that it never even saw during its 40 years in service.

Most importantly, I owe Sidura. She was supportive of this from day one and she allowed her entire house to be turned upside down for a week. She also kept the kids out of trouble during that time and she taught them to understand that this was a special event and that they should be proud of it and not worry too much that their routine was being upset. She even got Boaz and Dalya a limo ride! My wife is a saint.

It must be Grade School Prom!

The most important thing is that everyone had fun, from the three creative forces behind the project to the staff and most especially to the passengers. For the passengers, each journey was a time of relaxation, surprise and delight, and I hope that the 100-odd people who rode The Lost Train will keep the memories close, especially when planning their next journey... Maybe they'll choose the train!

Phew! We got through it!
Jason Shron, Kid Koala, and Fred Morin in The Lost Train.

About two thirds of The Lost Train team celebrate its successful completion.

On that happy note, I'll be off.

 

[wombatofludham]

What an amazing event!

 

If I recall correctly either David Shepherd or Terence Cuneo once described railway modelling as "3d painting" which is actually quite good.  On that basis I'm probably an Impressionist rather than a Dutch Master as I use RTR and RTP scenery!  Seriously though, I don't understand why modellers who construct good scenic layouts don't get that they are expressing themselves in a visual artform involving skills that artists and sculptors use every day.  When I've described what is involved to people who were a bit dismissive and sniffy about "model railways" when building a layout they were quite surprised and impressed, so perhaps redefining model railways as "3d art" might help the image.

[CathcartCircle]

Wow, just wow, thanks for sharing!

[Phil Bullock]

I had exactly the same discussion with colleagues of my employer who were organising an art festival

 

They failed to get my point!!!

 

Phil

[John B]

I've often viewed the best of modeling as art.

 

Some examples of the late Tom Harland's watercolor art adorns the walls of my home. His wonderful layout, "Bramblewick", certainly qualifies as art IMO.

 

There are other true "layout" artists out there: The Gravetts, Dave and Shirley Rowe, Iain Rice, Barry Norman, Peter Kazer to name but a few. And others whose work on a more focused level would qualify: Peter Leyland's buildings, for example.

[Bristol_Rich]

Kid Koala was there?!  Fantastic...The sounds my College Days....

[jjb1970]

Don't get me started on this one, we now have "conceptual artists" who basically get somebody else to make their art and then get laded as artistic greats. I enjoy visiting the Tate modern and I am not some reactionary who dismisses modern art as rubbish, I found the oft derided "shibboleth" by Doris Salcedo very powerful but some of the stuff they display there is just rubbish which displays neither any craftsmanship nor artistic sensibility IMO. I've had arguments many times that many modelers display a far greater degree of artistic craftsmanship than most of the current crop of star artists and been dismissed as an idiot for saying it. Then again I also get into trouble for considering industrial design to be artistic.

[Phil Parker]

My layout was part of an exhibition in the Ikon gallery a few years ago. Both it and I were art for 3 months!

 

I wrote it up on my blog:http://philsworkbench.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/eating-custard-doughnuts-in-gallery.html

 

Warning: Includes cake.

[bbishop]

I would argue that we work in four dimensions - the fourth one being movement.

 

Bill