I think that I may well hold the record for time taken over layout planning and construction.

It all started with a long weekend in Newquay in September 2004, when I discovered two things: firstly, a superb book published by OPC, "Branches and Byways -Cornwall" by John Vaughan, and secondly, the newly released range of N-Gauge stock from Dapol. (During the late 1970s/80s, I was an EM-Gauge modeller, and prior to that I had a N-Gauge layout, but the standard of British N-Gauge models was so poor that I turned to EM and built my own!) Anyway, the purchase of that book in Truro had set the ball rolling.

Being an avid GWR/BR(WR) fan, and a long-standing member of the Great Western Society for nearly 40 years, the choice of operating company was a no-brainer - I opted for Eras 4/5. The afore-mentioned book provided me with much inspiration and, at an early stage in the planning, I decided that the Southern Region's "Withered Arm" (the North Cornwall Line) should also play a part. Hence the concept of Trewenn was born.

Trewenn is a fictional North Cornwall fishing and resort town. The railway first reached there in the early 1850 in the form of a rather rambling broad-gauge branch line from Barnstaple, which later became part of the GWR, which helped to develop Trewenn's tourist trade from the 1890s - and when the L&SWR built the NCL in 1899 they opened their own branch to Trewenn from Launceston in 1900 to tap into the lucrative growing tourist trade. Thus, Trewenn is served by the Western and Southern Regions, both using the joint terminus. I specifically model the period from 1959 to 1962 - no Rule One here! (Shhh -just don't mention the appearance of a crimson liveried ex-SECR "Birdcage" set...!)

Track-laying proceeded apace, however a change of address meant that Trewenn went into storage for several years in my late mother's garage (wrapped in very many layers of black bin liners). After her death, the layout came home, and a colleague from the local railway club wired the layout (it's DC with Cab Control).

In 2018, the layout went into the Clubroom of our local NGS Area Group for ballasting to be done. However the friend who helped me to move Trewenn manged to rip almost all of the wiring out during the move - another friend who is for more into DCC than DC helped with the rewiring... Then came Covid-19, and after that little episode, I was hospitalised for three months in 2022. Meanwhile, Trewenn went underneath our N-Gauge Area Group's layout, until a certain well-known gentleman ("Mr. Shaw Savill", of this Forum) joined us and rewired Trewenn for me, resurrecting the cab-control feature for which I was most pleased.

Ballasting and rewiring completed, Trewenn has now come home; it now needs buildings and various items of infrastructure. Three of the four platforms will each accommodate a six coach train, the remaining platform is a short bay for auto-trains and DMUs. The layout is a simple fiddle-yard to terminus concept, being 12 feet long and 17 inches wide (nothing to be modelled beyond the railway's boundary, but will incorporate a creamery and a small factory with its own private sidings).

Traffic is principally passenger with goods serving the goods shed, the factory, the creamery, and the local coal merchant; one assumes that the majority of freight workings are off-stage. A great deal of effort has gone into creating the timetable for Trewenn and old copies of the Western and Southern Region timetables for the early 1960s have proved most useful. The Western Region's services come from Paddington and Bristol, via Taunton and Barnstaple. The Southern's services come from Waterloo and Exeter, via Okehampton and Launceston. The Southern also has a Summer Saturdays-only inter-regional service from Nottingham via the Great Central line and Oxford, Basingstoke, and Salisbury (an excuse to run some Thompson and Gresley stock).

So - that's where I am at the moment, about to embark on a building programme: station buildings, goods shed, factory, creamery, two engine sheds (one for the WR, the other being for the SR). These will be a mixture of kit and scratch-built buildings.

So, to back to my claim for 21 years of slow planning, etc.; I wonder whether anyone else can lay claim to an even more protracted snail's pace, before a train has been run?