Railways of Australia

York may have continued as an attractive and small settlement had it not been for an unusual conjunction of events. The town had always been an important departure point for the intrepid pastoralists, sandalwood cutters and explorers who tried their luck in the dry flat plains beyond the coast. In 1886 this process was greatly improved by the arrival of the railway. This lucky event occurred within two years of the discovery of gold at Southern Cross and later at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. This meant that by the late 1880s the town was teeming with miners, prospectors and fossickers all alighting from the train and preparing to make the long journey across the plains to the goldfields A railway line from York to Greenhills was opened in 1898,