The members of the Canterbury and District Model Engineering Society are feeling rather pleased after they won an award for their stand at the recent Model Engineer Exhibition held at Sandown Park, Esher in December.

This was the second year in which the society has taken a stand at the exhibition and was awarded a highly commended certificate for their efforts last year.

 Vice-Chairman Chris Davey said: “we were determined to go one better this year and eight  of our members offered examples of their work for this years show ranging from a ¾-inch scale traction engine built by one of the societies younger members 16-year old Luke Rose, two miniature cannons by Chris Silk, an shunting engine, a miniature ships engine and a mill engine all built by Dave Murray and a ¾-inch scale model of a LMS Railway express tank engine built by John Cox made up some of the smaller exhibits”

“Larger locomotives featured a Southern Railway King Arthur class express locomotive built by Dave Pearson, a model of a narrow gauge locomotive of the type found in quarries or factories built by Paul File and a Midland Railway express Locomotive built by Granville Askam all of which are regular performers on the societies Sturry track”

“Perhaps the star of our stand was a 1-inch scale, 5-inch gauge model of a British Railways Class 4 tank locomotive built by 87-year old retired toolmaker Ken Dickson who has spent 7-years building the locomotive. Ken admits to not knowing much about railway locomotives and had never built such a model before but it just so happened, that he chose to build, as a first time effort, one of the most complicated of miniature locomotives possible as almost everything on the full size locomotive has been reproduced on the model and exactly to scale”

“Ken’s engine has so far only been run under test conditions in his workshop and due to the complexity of the model there have been some teething troubles but hopefully his masterpiece will be in operation on our track in the New Year”

“The exhibition is one of the premier shows of its kind and attracts model engineers from all over the country. Members who exhibited and manned the stand enjoyed their time talking to fellow engineers and received many favourable comments about our stand and its exhibits whilst, outside, a number of our members with traction engines could be found steaming around the concourse of what is one of the countries largest racecourses. The award of ‘Best Club Stand’ has certainly been the icing on the cake for what has been another successful year for the society’.