Until 2007, The Maryland Midland and before that, the Western Maryland ran directly down Farquhar street in Union Bridge to reach the Lehigh Cement plant.  This required street running of about 4-5 blocks right down a residential neighborhood with loaded cement hoppers, coal hoppers and boxcars making the passage, often several times per day.  I can only imagine how pleasant that was for the people living there (except for the occasional rail fans).  A number of the houses are interesting in that there is no front yard, the entrance to the house is right on sidewalk with even mailboxes embedded in the sidewalk. Parking is either on the street or in an alleyway in the back.   Almost everything is painted an off-white but is very well kept up considering how old it is.  The track branched off of the UB yard at a 90 degree angle and past very closely by a house at the beginning of the street.  The rails are still in the front yard of the house.  The other end of the street entered directly into the cement plant.  

I have only one block instead of 4 blocks so I decided to model a one block characture of the street.  Directly behind the houses and engine is the UB engine house exactly like the prototype.  At the other end of the street is an old apparently abandoned garage that looks into the cement plant.  Fortunately I was able to visit the street last year and take some photographs but to be honest, Google Earth provides all of the information I need to complete this area.  I've still have a lot of details, greenery and weathering to complete but this shows how it is starting to come together.  The next step is to scratch build the red brick house at the top of the street.  This red brick house looks like it would fit in at Gettysburg.  After this is complete, I need to finish my version of the cement plant.  

Ironically, my previous layout was a 1905 depiction of mining railroads in central Nevada.  Building a 2005 modern layout, made me think I would be building a lot of modern buildings, however it is apparent that a number of these houses on Farquhar street were 20-30 years old by the time any buildings were built in Goldfield, NV.