Concept:
In 1988 Mr Alexander Pfahl runs a repair shop for model railways. The workshop
is based on the ground floor of a multi-storey building which is situated in the
outskirts of the German city of Heidelberg. The house next door was only
recently demolished and its remains are still visible.
Alexander's many loyal frequent customers allow him to make a living of
repairing model trains - he often works till late at night but can be seen in
his workshop again the next morning by 9 o’clock already. He also sells a few
model railway vehicles and accessories; nevertheless, service and repairs to his
customers' rolling stock is definitely the main part of his business.
As usual, we wanted to reproduce countless tiny details without ‘overloading’
the diorama; it should still look as realistic as possible. Only one model
vehicle can be seen: a German mail van (‘Deutsche Bundespost’) delivering spare
parts and other items from a model railway manufacturer, and a happy customer is
just leaving Alexander’s workshop. By the way, there were regional elections in
1988, so we intended to place an advert for a candidate of a (fictional)
political party in our diorama as well.
This time we wanted to focus on modelling the interior of the building, and
therefore we decided to illuminate the workshop; hence you can watch Alexander
at work through the big front windows. Thanks to a street light and the glowing
shop sign above the entrance our diorama should look impressive even at dawn or
night.
Read our detailed pictorial to find out how we put our plans into action; please
find the table of contents below:
1
1. Materials list
12. Preliminary considerations / planning
13. Base plate and frame
14. Street and pavement
15. Workshop
16. Building (outer walls and roof)
17. Interior lighting
18. Neighbouring estate with rubble
19. Mail van
10. Further details and accessories
11. Picture gallery