by Petr Osipov
1/700 Port Said 1937 (Various)
This diorama shows a scene in Port Said around 1937. Port Said is one of the most important Egyptian harbours situated at the Suez Canal entrance. The scene is set near the British Navy House, on the northeast corner of the Bassin Cherif.
S.S.Exilona was a mixed passenger-cargo version of a Harriman type freighter. Built as a part of American War Emergency Program in 1919, it was sold to the American Export Lines, which operated a line between the US East Coast and the Mediterranean. The mainstays of the fleet were the Hog Islanders and the Harrimans. Exilona and both other Harrimans, Exarch and Excelcior were sold to other lines in 1938, and none of them survived the war. The Loose Cannon kit provided a good basic form, but required some major clean up. It was refined with Trumpeter’s boats, BJ-Modellbau davits, Lion Roar ladders and WEM doors and steering wheel.
The small freighter is the WSW kit, a typical 3-island Tramp, thousands of which were built. I did not select any specific prototype, but rather portrayed a generic vessel. This was one of the last WSW kit examples, showing the mould wear, but nothing I couldn’t fix. I replaced the Aztec ladders with Lion Roar PE, and added WEM doors and steering wheels, GMM railings and cloth line and Battlefleet cargo pallets.
The schooner was built using a number of photos and paintings as reference, and a good bit of imagination. The hull was formed from balsa, and plated with CA-soaked paper and wood texture plastic. The rest is Evergreen and brass. I used winches and bollards from Battlefleet, steering wheel and doors from WEM, boom rigging from Loose Cannon and the ratlines from Atlantic.
The tugs are from WSW and BFM, refined with some bits from the spare box.
The pier is from BJ-Modellbau, expanded with the balsa board and plastic, and detailed with the BFM’s bollards. The crane is built using different PE set bits from Eduard, GMM and Lion Roar, and the scrap resin and plastic bits.
The trains are from WEM, the trucks are either modified Skywave or scratched. The houses are from Tamiya and Cruiseline models. The figures are from Eduard.
As in all my dioramas, a cat is present, on the roof of the middle building. However, it is less then 0.5mm in size and unluckily my camera is not capable to show it.
