Karralyka Centre expo Jan 18 2002

The day saw seven noble MMC Inc souls brave the wilds of Ringwood East for this first exhibition in the New Year.  The day was warm, and ended up decidedly hot, but we were comfortably cool inside the superbly air-conditioned centre. 

In the foyer, on the left, with suitably arranged tables, was Dave Denner with his expanded Tricky Track.  The main feature of this latest version is that he has incorporated a passing place, enabling two locos to be running on the track simultaneously.  The first loco to arrive at this point stops until the second one arrives, after which they each proceed on their way.  A very neat (and very necessary!) addition to the layout, Dave. 
























The Crazy Inventors airship and helicopter and several smaller models completed Dave's generous display.























Kimball Monger was next with his Rider in the Sky and Kim Khan hillclimb racer running on its "dynamometer".  The former had folks craning their necks skywards, the latter wondering what all the noise was about: Kimball had put in a resonant device to emulate the noise of this particular machine at full throttle, rather successfully!
















After Kimball Graham Jost had his Partridge Ball Roller and Penguin/Lego Staircase.  Each performed creditably enough, though not as perfectly as he would have liked - he promises to do better at next showing.  He was grateful that the noise from Kimball's racer even drove its builder nuts till he slowed it down to a more modest roar!

In this group of tables Jack Parsisson was on the right with his Plough Tractor, Road Roller and Liberty Ship Marine Engine.  Each of these performed faultlessly all day, demonstrating how things ought to be done.  Well done, Jack!  He also had his hand-operated Schmidt Coupling and right-angle drive models for the fiddlers.

Over along the window were John Brand and Roger and Sandra Hall .  John had his Seaplane in fine fettle, complete with yellow-tipped black propeller spinning away all day.  A fine model, this.  The gantry crane is rather neat, too - and being hand-operated its mode of operation can easily be seen.  John also had a red/green truck from one of the '50s Meccano manuals and a railway breakdown crane designed to run on Hornby O gauge track.


















Sandra had built a lawnmower from the 30-model set and Roger had the walking steamboat from the Crazy Inventor's series and about a dozen other small neat models, each in impeccably finished parts.  As Roger returned from the main hall for the nth time at the end of the day with a rather guilty look, he revealed a lovely boxed No 5 set in light red and green - we didn't dare ask the price, but we think the grin said it all!  Well done, Roger!
























































Oh, I nearly forgot - yes, we had plenty of interested visitors all day long.  Many came back for a second look after visiting the main hall, and as well as the usual sprinkling from the UK, we even had one visitor from the US - he wanted to know if we knew of any Erector supplies here!!  A great day altogether - most enjoyable.
Graham Jost
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