Neil Young’s career has been a varied one: folk rock and hard rock; vocoders and rockabilly, duets with Pearl Jam and duets with Devo. But music (and film) haven’t been the only places where Young’s made an impact. Until 2008, he was also a part-owner of Lionel Trains.

Young was an avid model railroader for many years, but one thing about the available models always bothered him: they didn’t sound right. Sound has always been important to Young, in a way that even his fellow musicians might have found obsessive. He carefully oversees the mixing and mastering of every album and every re-release, and he’s been using the same road crew for years, customizing a speaker setup for each of his shows with absolute precision. Not surprisingly, when the trains in his sets didn’t sound just so, Young decided to do something about it.

In 1992, Young, along with his partner Richard Kughn, created Liontech, a sound system customized for Lionel trains. They introduced the first model two years later: Railsounds II. (They followed it up with a remote-controlled command system that same year.) It was a hit, a huge hit. Young took it to train shows, and he was always the star—often among people who’d never heard of his music. Within a year, Young was a part-owner of the company, a position he held for over a decade.

What Do You Think? »

       

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.