Howard Brother & the G3 Santa Fe Lines

[IanT]

I've mentioned the Howard Brothers Santa Fe Lines recently - and I suspect many UK modellers (and quite probably not many US modellers either) have ever heard of them. However, they were one of the pioneers of large scale garden railroading (and Gauge '3' ) in the US and traces of their efforts still exist today, although sadly the "conservation" of the Fairplex site involved converting it to G1.  :-(

Have a read of this interesting (PDF) article about the Fairplex Garden Railroad which gives some interesting background to the Brothers history. I have other material about them that I will try to include in some of the future website updates I've mentioned previously.

https://grw.trains.com/~/media/import/files/pdf/9/0/9/fairplex_rr.pdf

Reading about the Fairplex site, I was also reminded about 'Tucktonia' which was here in UK. One of my sons lives in the area (Tuckton) and I've often wondered where the original site was. I might be driving past it quite regularly.

Regards,

IanT

[IanT]

PS To answer my own question

'Tucktonia' was built on a four acre part of the Tuckton Park Leisure Complex. It was on Stour Road, Christchurch (so I have indeed been driving past it) - but was redeveloped for residential use after the Parks closure in 1986.

Apparently, there was 1/2 mile of G3 track in the 'Model Village', with about 75 items of rolling stock.

IanT

 

[Andy B]

Ian,
I thought you ought to find it with a bit of googling.
Did you never go there?
I'm not sure whether it was that hot summer of '76 (the year Tucktonia opened) or the following year, '77, when our family did a round-England tour. My dad was collecting Silver Jubilee bottled beers so he was trying to get round as many of the local brewery regions as he could....
Anyway, I do remember going there and a few features such as the model HST stick in my memory. I didn't appreciate what scale / gauge it was then.

Andy

[Doddy]

Reading about the Fairplex site, I was also reminded about 'Tucktonia' which was here in UK. One of my sons lives in the area (Tuckton) and I've often wondered where the original site was. I might be driving past it quite regularly.

Regards,

IanT

Tucktonia: Located at 50° 43? 55.2? N, 1° 47? 24? W

Enclosed HYMEK and GWR Steam engine by Windsor Castle

[Andy B]

Finally - I've found some footage of another lost G3 line, this time at the London Toy and Model Museum in Bayswater.
I got to know the staff there well enough that they would let me operate on my visits. The G3 line was a simple straight run, but with a good variety of stock to run an afternoon soon passed....
It was stud contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YBDYpLSRI8
0:24 - 0:26 A tank loco on a mixed goods
1:24 - 1:36 GC Atlantic with carriages, then we see A1/A3 2795 light engine, with a Deltic in the background
4:08 - another brief glimpse of the Deltic
5:17 - 6:20 The Deltic with carriages, then the train is taken back the other way by another pacific (excuse my ignorance of what class it is!)

Andy

[Doddy]

oooooo
Deltic and the CIWL stock 

[Andy B]

Digging up an old thread - there is another brief bit of film of the LT&M museum's G3 line here -

between 0:47 and 0:57

[IanT]

"Tucktonia: Located at 50° 43? 55.2? N, 1° 47? 24? W"

Google Maps translated that quite easily - Thank you

And yes, I drive by that "estate" every time I'm down there...

Regards,

IanT

[MikeWilliams]

Not sure how I missed this thread from "only" 6 years ago.  I went to Tucktonia with my girlfriend at the time, on my new Honda 500/four in 1976/7.  The buildings were amazing and the locomotives a bit generic.  What did strike me though was that the railway and the buildings were in scale together and really not many model villages are like that as they use narrow gauge or Gauge 1 which is too small for scale.

Mike

[IanT]

My connection with the area also goes back a very long time Mike. My Uncle Frank and his family lived directly on the other side of the Stour River from the site (in Iford Lane) and I used to regularly stay there at weekends as I was stationed in Blandford and got on very well with my cousin John. This was in the '60s though and Tucktonia wasn't there at that time. Nor (to be honest) were Model Railways much on our minds. Boscombe Ballroom and 'Le Kilt' (in central Bournemouth) were our usual haunts in those days...can't remeber why now.   

My eldest son and his family moved down to the area about 7 years ago, so I often find myself back in familiar territory some 60 years later...

IanT