I am working on a Port Said diorama, dated prewar, around 1937. It was a very lively harbor, with a large number of ships passing it towards Suez Canal.
I plan the following ships for it:
SS Exilona, American Export Lines - passenger-cargo combi-liner, serving Philadelphia to Mediterranean route. Loose Cannon Harriman type kit.
Liner Victoria, Lloyd Triestino - italian large liner, making a stop at Port Said on its way to Indian ocean. Regia Marina kit.
Tramp Therese Moller (ex Drumgeith) - BFM's kit.
Small tramp from the WSW's merchant set.
Tugs, local boats, small schooner, a building.
The diorama would cover the harbour part with a bit of Quai Francois-Joseph and a corner to Bassin du Commerce.
So, the general layout looks like this:
Therese Moller would be docked in front of Exilona (shown), Victoria would pass along them. WSW's tramp would be docked at a corner.
Exilona is complete, and here are a few pictures of it:
(sorry for not too good photos, my camera sucks indoors, but it rains all the time outside...)
Loose cannon kit is ok, but many small parts had to be redone. Original PE was augmented with Lion Roar doors, inclined ladders, vertical ladders, anchors, WEM steering wheel, BJ Modellbau Davits, as well as self-cast copies of Trumpeter's Liberty ship boats. Resin mast bodies were replaced with hard steel rod, hatch covers made out of evergreen N-scale car siding. A few BFM bollards replaced some bubble-affected ones, some bit here and there has been scratched. Rigging is a mix of invisible thread, human (my) and cat hair, and WEM lycra rigging.
The schooner is still under construction:
The hull basic form was made of balsa (bent to form camber), then laminated with resin, and plated with CA paper. Deck was added from the N-scale car siding. Superstructure is scratchbuild, the boat is WEM, bollards and windlass are BFM. Some smaller details like anchors, crow's nests, sails and rigging are still missing.
I also made a tiny sailing boat out of WEM's 27' Whaler to train doing sails in this scale, a layer from a plain paper handkerchief does the job.
Keep up the good work
I then checked my cargo ship stash, and Loose Cannon's Harriman Type kit was definitely a one to build, too, I love those 3 island steamers. And as researching for it, I found that one of the Harriman's options, American Export Lines SS Exarch/Excelcior/Exilona was advertised as "American way to Mediterranean"... So, Port Said is realistic for both Victoria and Exilona! Thats it! And after finding a number of old maps and photos of Port Said online, I decided which part of it to show. Adding a few tramps, like BFM's Drumgeith/Therese Moller and WSW's one is also no problem. Maybe I'll drop in Grimsby Class Londonderry when it will finally arrive... quite a few kits which are underways are badly overdue!
