Stuart Devereux

Unlike some of my fellow operators I was never really interested in real trains, although many thousands of hours during my childhood were spent on the station top in my home town of Otley in West Yorkshire where a disused loading bay area, locally known as ‘the Docks’, doubled up as our football stadium in the winter and cricket pitch in the summer. Of course, I did have a Hornby Dublo 3-rail train set that I shared with my brother, as did most boys who grew up in the 50s and 60s.

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Having moved from Yorkshire to Hornchurch, my interest in model railways first surfaced in the mid-70s through a colleague at work who became a very good friend.  He was a GWR enthusiast and I helped him while he built his first layout. My first attempt was in N Gauge, in a garden shed, inspired by Peter Denny’s Buckingham Central.  I soon relocated to the loft in an attempt to replicate my home town station at Otley. An advert in the local paper and help from the town museum resulted in lots of material and photographs which I still have today.  A house move in 1986 meant the embryonic layout had to be dismantled and the station building, goods shed, station master’s house and other models of local houses and factory were stored away.  Work commitments and a young family put my modelling on hold except for a very limited L-shaped end to end with little operating potential.

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My desire to build a model railway which had lay dormant for over 30 years resurfaced with retirement in January 2010.  A railway shed was purchased and I set about my first serious layout.  I started with a double-track tail-chaser, Devdale, which was soon extended to include Otley as a branch which allowed me to bring my old station buildings out of storage. Ilkley was added and the layout was converted to DCC.  Finally, a fiddle yard and a temporary board across the doorway enabled the whole layout to be joined up. This fine example of a cobbled together, unplanned layout has kept me out of mischief for the last 7 years and given me hours of enjoyment.

 

I have been a member of the N Gauge Society since the mid-70s but never joined a local club until the South Essex Area Group of the Society was formed just over a year ago. It was at one of the Group’s early meetings that I first met Steve, who showed me a plan of James Street. I immediately invited myself round to see the layout and two sessions later I was invited to join the operating team for James Street’s debut at Warley, and an item was crossed off my retirement bucket list.

 

Very generous with his time, Steve has been good enough to allow me to tap into his expertise and Devdale Mark 2 is underway. Most of the original Devdale has been dismantled and all the buildings are back in storage. Planning is complete and the first two baseboards are under construction. If my new layout turns out to be even half as impressive as the award-winning James Street I’ll be more than satisfied. You never know, Devdale Mark 2 may one day appear on the exhibition circuit – and, if so, another item can be crossed off my bucket list. 

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At exhibitions you can normally find me operating the two outer tracks of the four track main line.