OUR STORY
Event Railways was started with the goal of bringing the magic of steam railways to life for the next generation of kids. This is our story...
Our founder James fell in love with steam trains when he was 6 years old after visiting the Dobwalls Forest Railroad in Cornwall with his family on a camping holiday. It had an incredible collection of miniature 7 1/4" locomotives and James spent every moment there riding behind the magnificent trains through the pine forest. He and his family loved it so much they went back almost every year until sadly, in around 2006 the railway closed its doors for good to be re-developed as luxury eco-lodges. The track was ripped up and the trains were all auctioned off and shipped to Australia...that is all except for one.
One of the original locomotives built for John Southern the founder of Dobwalls - 'David Curwen', had remained in the UK and changed hands a couple of times before spending some time at Eastleigh Lakeside Miniature Railway, before again being sold to a private owner in 2025.
Then on a fateful December evening whilst flicking through Facebook - James saw an advert that would change everything.
'FOR SALE: Ex Dobwalls Loco David Curwen'. He immediately rang around a couple of friends for advice and arranged to go and see it in person with the help of Harry Spencer (Spencer Steam Services). It was just as he remembered from when he was a kid and it felt like fate had come knocking.
James couldn't resist purchasing what was his favourite locomotive from his childhood - No.8 David Curwen was SOLD!
David Curwen now lives on the beautiful private Kyre Valley Railway, but James was keen to share the locomotive that had ignited his love of trains from an early age with the next generation of kids. It was this desire to spread the love of steam trains that led to the creation of Event Railways.
James enlisted the help of his family and friends to help build a portable railway for their new locomotive so they could tour it around and bring steam trains to the masses!
A deal was done with Moors Valley Railway to purchase a package of rails. The back garden was requisitioned as a track storage facility and the garage became a factory, building up to 8x 5m track panels per day. In the space of just a month, there was now hundreds of metres of track completed and a growing number of events signed up for the new portable railway.
James and his brother Nick even managed to track down and renovate two of the locomotives original passenger coaches built for Dobwalls back in the 70's that had been living inside a barn being used as benches for nearly 15 years!
We have had so much fun getting to this point in our journey and can't wait to share our portable railway with thousands of people of all ages throughout the summer!
We will be attending music festivals, harbour festivals, county shows, steam extravaganzas, weddings, community events and lots more, so if you have any kind of event and you think it could benefit from our steam railway then why not drop us a message? We love to chat about trains and are happy to discuss what might be feasible for your event.
Thank you for reading our story and we look forward to hearing from you!
