Maryland Midland 305 crosses Little Pipe Creek.

One thing that was noticed immediately by this transplanted Nevadan was how many farms, churches and trees there are in Western Maryland.  I decided I needed a farm scene and some forest for the trains to run though.  On my layout the forested areas function as scene dividers between relatively prototypical scenes that are way too close together.  So here is the latest areas to have scenery on my Maryland Midland Railroad.  

The good news about modeling modern railroads is that we have tools like Google Earth that allow us to look at structures and track from the comfort of our homes.  The bad news is that most industries are guarded more closely than area 51.  Getting photographs of industries when visiting the area is challenging.  The side of the Universal Forest Products plant in New Windsor I needed to model was completely obscured by fences, buildings and mounds.

Since the modeled portion of my layout depicts from New Windsor to Highfield, how to represent the eastern end where it connects to CSX was always problematic.  My layout is in a finished portion of my attic and there is a ten foot section where the roof is a 45 degrees down to a hip-wall.  Incorporating this into the layout was difficult.  I finally tackled the project and built a shelf along the wall with a lift-out section to be able to access the attic storage area.

Ordinarily I wouldn't get much done in the summer as golf would get all of my time, but a knee injury has led to much more time spent modeling than usual.  After several false starts, I finally have Highfield starting to vaguely resemble the prototype.

Doing Highfield right is important as it was alway important junction between the Hanover sub and the East sub of the Western Maryland.  It has always been very popular location for rail fans.  Later, it became the Eastern interchange between the Maryland Midland and CSX.  

When I retired, we decided that we wanted to live close to our grandchildren and we wanted to live on a farm.  We ended up in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia and I immediately started building my Maryland Midland.  While it isn't a large layout, it is designed for operations and it mimics the operations of the real MMID from Union Bridge to Highfield.  It is getting to the point where operations sessions and the input from other modelers is needed to improve it.  At the least, I'd like to show off what I have created.

• Re-thinking and re-doing Highfield

• A real railroad in your front yard.

• Lehigh Cement conveyor slope too steep?

• Lehigh Cement Company: The centerpiece is coming into place.

• Street running in Union Bridge

Now that the Lehigh Cement Co. and the Union Bridge street running scene are done except for the fine detailing, My attention has turned to the other end of the layout: Highfield.  Highfield is where the two mainlines of the Western Maryland merged and currently where the Maryland Midland interchanges with CSX.  It consists of three sidings, but I think the wye is long gone.  The often photographed Highfield Train order office sat where the two lines merged.  Here is a map of the prototype area. 

One of the more peculiar aspects of the street running in Union Bridge is that the track entered the street by running through the front yard of an old brick house at the top of Farquhar street.  How would you like that barely missing your house every day? 

Here is a photo of the actual brick house:

After 11 days without power, I am finally back working on the railroad. The prototype has a huge silo used to load two dry bulk trailers at a time.  Mine has to be seriously compressed but still turned out to be very tall.  I've completed the conveyor that runs from the mill building to the truck loading silo, but I didn't appreciate how steep the angle is from the mill building on the left to the top of the silo until I put it all together and got a look at it.