I have been working on “Logistics”, for several years. (Probably my last huge diorama, This one is almost 7 feet, (2.13 meters) by 4.5 feet, (1.4 meters).  ( I don’t have room for another one this size in the museum!) Most of those years I didn’t have time to spend on it much more than a month or so altogether, and, I had designed and built two buildings and a locomotive to near completion and then decided not to use them for one reason or another and they went to the trash or was given away to a friend! I thought these might be of interest to somebody out there.

The first was a building that was across the street from the Roman-German Museum. The Beer Hall that replaced it spanned the street that will hold the armor column and will be the central focal point of the dio. This one just didn’t “feel” right to me from the beginning and no matter what I did to it, I couldn’t make it work. Finally, I threw it in the dumpster and started over from scratch. I had taken no step by step photos of this building, so all I have is the painted and weathered facade below.

Double click on photos to enlarge.

It was to have a cigar store front. You can see it’s location on the front street adjacent to the train station. This photo was very early on in 2002.

This building was to be the Rathaus, (City Hall). It seemed that no matter what I did to it, it looked too much like a turn of the 19th/20th Century American building, not European at all. This was a massive conversion of a Custom Dioramics heavy foam building, (CD 7003, European Town Hall and Clocktower). I replaced it with a from scratch Old Town Section.

Here is an overall shot including both rejected buildings. As you can imagine, it is a really difficult decision to pitch these as they involved a lot of time and effort! The Cigar store is on the right and the Rathaus on the far left! In the front, you can see what will become a cutaway of the Hauptbahnhof, (Main Train station). In this photo, you can see a portion of the canopy of the Train station. Below will be a BR 52 locomotive hooked up to a German rail gun.

Which brings us to the third reject. This is the Tank Workshop BR 52 Train Engine and coal car. All resin, I had added a lot of photo-etching such as treadplate, etc. metal and plastic parts. Probably the most difficult kit I have ever built. The instructions were like translating Egyptian heiroglyphics, it looked fine but it was quite obvious that it was waaaay out of scale, much too large. Fortunately, before I finished it completely, the Trumpeter kit was released and was substituted. I was intending for the Tank Workshop kit to go to the dumpster, but Steve Hoard, one of my co-workers at VLS, asked if he could have it, so, I don’t know what he did with it, but it has a home!

This is the building that replaced the Cigar store front. It is the “Schwarze hund Brauhaus” Black Dog Brewery. I will post step by step pics on this building later. My German friends check my spelling, context and period accuracy before the final signage goes in.

I replaced the Rathaus with a section of “Old town”. A section of medieval buildings. The photo shows two buildings in progress and two in the very first stage. This is an old photograph. Currently, this section is almost finished.

To be continued…..