There wasn't much time for me to enjoy the MMEE show this year - a couple of hours in the morning before heading off to sunny Peterborough (more on that tomorrow). I didn't get time therefore to gawp for a long period at anything. Despite this, it was still well worth a trip. Well, that and I had a free ticket for supplying a boat for display...
The trouble with model engineering is that much of it takes a long time. Combine this with the reluctance of some, and over-enthusiasm of others to show off their efforts and you can feel that much of the show looks the same as it did the year before. Perhaps I wasn't studying everything in detail, but I'm sure some of the things that caught my eye were catching it in previous years.
Of course you can't build a miniature traction engine every year and even if you did, to a philistine like me they tend to look very similar. Road chugger anoraks will be much more forgiving. Having said that I don't care how many times I see one, I still marvel that anyone can make such a thing.
Stand-out item had to be the Meccano car just inside the entrance. Considering there was 7 1/4 inch Garratt there as well and I love Garratt's, you can see how impressed I was.
A real, full-sized car, built from over-scale replicas of Meccano parts, this was a work of art. Much of the "model" is fibreglass and aluminium but the bolts are resin replicas scaled up from the ones in sets. While not licenced for the road, it's a massively impressive model and attracted a huge amount of interest.
At the other end of the scale, several wooden horse-drawn vehicles impressed me. Displayed in natural wood finish, the quality of the workmanship was something I can only aspire to.
Anyway, in this case pictures speak louder than words so head off here for my photos of the event.
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