Some of you might know that I have been busy for quite some time, with a rather large project: good (?) ol' Custom Dioramics railwaystation and signal tower. I Wanted to populate this station with a locomotive. First Baluard tpy 75 with coach came in to mind, but then I came across the much more detailed BR-52 from Trumpeter. Though no place for a coach left, I decided to use this one instead. During the war, the German propagande engine reportedly made a short movie, to be shown in cinema's, called "Lasst Ihn Sausen". This can be translated as "Let them whiz". The idea behind this dio is that the locomotive is just doing the opposite: wait till higher powers decide to let it pass. In the mean while, the driver does some maintainance and the stoker cleans up some of the mess he made. The plattform is filling up with passengers, as other trains are delayed in their turn... The figures are a mixed bunch of resin and plastic from different manufacturers, such as Preiser, Stalingrad, MiniArt, Mk35, etc. Same goes for the accessories..

Nice work man , cool build !!!

Thanks... I just updated the Links, so you can see them right away

AMAZING!!!!

Beautiful work. I like the way you captured a moment in time so well. I definitely love all the little stories that are going on with the individual figures yet still make a complete diorama. To me this is how a great diorama is to be done. Thank you for taking the time and effort to photograph and share this with us.

That was the sound of my head exploding - so complex, so much work, so fantastic - any idea how many hours in total? That photo of the woman picking up her bags - brilliant because the focus makes it look like she’s moving. I sure could use the suit with his hands in his pockets…gee I could use so many of them. Please could you identify the Preiser ones? - it’ll help me decide if they’re worth chasing. I recognize the MiniArt tram passengers & looks like you didn’t use the drag queen either!

That’s excellent! Thank you for sharing.

Outstanding work in every aspect! If you could "switch" these photos into those old B&W grainy wartime pics, they'd look as though you were standing at the station. Great job, & thanks for posting this fine scene!!

Gee guys, I don't know where to start

First of all: @ Pjotr: thanks!

@Brenton: Thank you for the compliments. I made up dozens of small stories in my head over time. Every time I got new figures I tried to make a small story around them.
Some come on the dio as in my head, others... not so much. I tried to convey the fact that every person has his/her own story, yet end up at the same place, having a common (intermediate) purpose: take that train.
Where to? They only know themselves... That makes a dio interesting to watch at.

@Tim: I thought it was a thunderstorm but apparently was wrong
The number of hours? I really don't know. I have been at a stand still for about 10 years. The locomotive was finished more than a year ago, after which I turned my attention to the station.
In due time I collected quite some figures, at the beginning mostly resin (no plastic available at that time), yet recently more and more plastic figures came available. I started painting them in march, and only finished yesterday.
Regarding the woman with all, the luggage (from Stalingrad) I pictured the following story: a lone woman, on a long journey. She obviously left her home behind her, since she carries all of her belongings with her. Evicted? Bombed? The temperature is going to be pleasant, yet she wears as much of her bulky clothes, so they need no space in the tattered luggage, causing her to sweat and turn red. She finally arrives on the station, where she can put everything down till her train arrives....

You mean the guy with the grey suit and hat? You are lucky then, since that one is still available: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/miniart-38015-civilians-1930s-1940s--1091102
There are quite some figures which are not readily available any more...
I actually used only 1 Preiser figure, which is the nurse... The rest (which are soldiers) are still on their sprues, waiting for better times.
The tram passengers are available as a separate set too. She is not the prettiest fruit on the tree now, is she? I slightly modified the sitting lady, by using Tamiya white putty to make a fur collar (painting it like a fox).

@Gary: the pleasure is completely mine!

@Jack: Thank you for the compliments. Really appreciated. I might try my hand at this tonight, and will post them here...

Thanks for the i/d’s, I reviewed my many notes on figures and found I had identified that MiniArt set after all, but I hadn’t rated it very highly because the box-art made the suit guy look too much like Hitler & of the others I could only use the young lady – expensive for one figure, but now I see I could use both those mentioned as “extras”. One other i/d question – who makes the lady in purple with white collar/cuffs/belt, you did a particularly fine paint job on her.

Thanks once again...

This figurine if also from Stalingrad. I got the whole set from my loving wife. Each figure is also available separate
BNA supposedly has Stalingrad figures in their assortment.



BTW: the reason why these type of moustaches where so popular stems from WW1. Regular moustaches could not be carried, as this gave problems with their gasmasks. The toothbrush moustaches were the solution, and were kept ever since... untill the war ended of course ...

The young farm girl wearing klompen caught my eye in particular. It calls to mind the old line, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Ahhh OK I really do need to re-research don’t I - my notes just say “check out Stalingrad’s civvies”! Geez I hope your wife got a big bunch of flowers, that was not a cheap set. The guy on the left would be ideal for Kubis taking the grenade out of his bag…but he seems very stunted. I know those caps were big in reality but it accentuates his odd proportions, I’d probably replace the cap with a hat and give him longer legs

@ Marc: Because of the bottle of wine, and the fact that I wanted to represent a station in the Alsace, I found her to be particularly suitable. Although I later read that a cleavage was not done at that time. But, how much would a farmers'daughter know...

@Tim: I certainly thanked her appropriately
The guy indeed is not too tall and slender build. I like his somewhat motley and ratlike appearance. This makes him suitable for the setup I figured for him. The confident gendarme, beaming with authority, asking the subdued civilian for his ausweis. There is a mix of people rather well doing (on the party side of things?), and people doing not so well (obviously picking (at that time, around summer 1942) the wrong party).

Beautyfully done and very good pictures. Shows what a good modeller can make out of a rather bad model as well as your skill in scratch-building and painting.

But someone really hates those passengers - an original/wartime BR52 makes for a rather unpleasent ride due to a rather jerky movement (Post war/museum engines have been modified and even there riding in the first wagon behind the engine is unpleaseant)

Thank you very much. I most certainly do not consider myself a highly skilled builder. Your comment is all the more flattering

The idea is not really that the passengers will enter a coach behind the locomotive, but that their train is held up by the current occupant. I know the BR-52 was a goods engine.