The following photos depict York Central Railway as it appeared as of June 2006.

The years take their toll on us as we all know and we came to the conclusion that we had to start all over again. We realized that we were tired of working so hard at it! The prospect of starting over was a scary one but it was also a very exciting time. We thought about it for a long time and decided that the main reason for starting over was because the layout was becoming a chore as opposed to being a hobby.

We decided that we should have a simpler layout, more natural looking, less upkeep and more soothing to look at. After considerable thought, we settled on making the whole layout out of natural products, wood, concrete, metal, anything that did not need upkeep yearly! We wanted something to last for several years since we decided that this would be our last layout.

We thought concrete buildings might be the answer so we designed our buildings and built them over the winter. We used a mold method for one type of building and others we used the “Jigstone” method.

We also decided to replicate the history of our area and incorporate some of the historical buildings such as the Sharon Temple in the Hamlet of Sharon.

We built both of our childhood homesteads and put those on the layout. Of course it is still not finished, but this time we are not rushing... We can’t! Not anymore!

We now enjoy a more peaceful looking layout, we have more time to enjoy the people around us and we still run trains on a regular basis without all the work and worry.

There is something to be said for simplicity!