A bank Holiday exhibition celebrating 100 years of Meccano was officially opened by Michaela Hopkinson, grand-daughter of the inventor of the construction toy and Hornby trains.
Mrs Hopkinson, 70, said she grew up with Meccano but confessed: "My main interest now is model trains."
The Meccano crane built by Edward Oatley
The exhibition at the Great Western Society's Didcot Railway Centre was organised by the Hornby Railway Collectors' Association.
It featured displays of Meccano models and working layouts of Hornby trains as well as Dinky Toys, which the late Frank Hornby also invented. He devised Meccano in 1901 and went on to produce Hornby trains and Dinky Toys.
Hundreds of visitors pored over 20 stands displaying the most complex Meccano constructions and model railway layouts.
One of the largest Meccano constuctions was a scale model of a 150-ton shipyard crane built by Edward Oatley of London, Mr Oatley said: "It took me two years to build and contains 3,000 nuts and bolts."
Picture: George Reszeter
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