Welcome to the Valley Central Railway web site. The VCR is an HO scale model railway I'm currently building in the basement of my home, with the help of my good friend Gary Strong. The photo at the top of the page, from the NEW VCR, shows Ontario Northland Railway FP7A #1517, from the Polar Bear Express, pulling a fantrip consisting of CN passenger equipment, in pre-VIA paint, on the first portion of the layout where the scenery is done. Below are some pictures of the first VCR from its early beginnings, to that fateful day when it was dismantled in July-Aug. 1995, to allow for a move to a new home Sept. '95. Construction of the new VCR began November 18, 1995, and progressed rather quickly to a point where all benchwork is up in all three rooms of the basement, and trackwork is moving along smoothly.

Photo Gallery 1

	In the first photo, a CP Rail GP-38 pulls a string of freight cars around the main yard and engine terminal. This was very early in the history of the layout. As time passed, the yard and engine terminal were moved to another location, and another level was added to support the town, as seen in some of the next photos.
The second photo shows the peninsula that was added in the laundry room. The lower track was part of the main line, which could be run as a continuous loop. The upper level would have been a branch line to a lumber mill or coal mine in the corner under the window on the left side of the room.
	In photo 3, you are looking through the VCR diesel shop. An ex-Burlington Northern SW-7 is about to enter the far end for some light service work. It seems to be a quiet day for the mechanics so far, as the shop is empty.
In photo 4, you're looking out over the town from a hilltop vantage point. This point is (was) also a good spot for railfanning, as the mainline ran below through a cut between the hillside and town. Beyond the town is the main rail yard.
	In photo 5, a Monon BL2 spots a tank car loaded with diesel fuel on one of the engine service tracks. The VCR uses locomotives from a number of different railroads, and uses anything from the '50s to the '90s, because we didn't want to be tied to a particular time period or region.
Photo 6 shows some of the last scenery work done on the original VCR. The leftmost track leads to the main railyard which was about 7" higher than the main level of track. The next tunnel comes from under the town, which is where the train entering tunnel 3 is heading. The train will go through the cut mentioned earlier, run around the base of the town, and into a tunnel beneath the town and yard. The fourth track shown, which is separated by a small lake from the other tracks, leads to a single staging track that represented a US interchange.
	In this photo, you're looking down on the main-yard engine service area, as well as overlooking part of the main yard. The main yard on the new VCR will be almost double the size, and includes a two track intermodal terminal.
	Here are three more photos of the last section to have scenery applied. It was also the first section to fall victim to my wife Val, who is seen below happily pulling out track nails and ripping up the flex-track main line.

Below is a photo of what used to be a small park in the town. The section of track once was home to an 0-4-0T switch engine, donated by the VCR, to the town. Also shown is a long shot of the now deserted town, showing the main street, and the intersection where I had working traffic lights, built from a circuit published in Model Railroader. At this point, there was no turning back on dismantling the layout.

To finish off the original VCR, here are three more photos of the destruction of the layout, with my wife and our son, Brett, enjoying every minute of it! Also shown, nine photos of the layout before the For Sale sign went up.