Over the years I have often thought that Lynchburg, Virginia would make an excellent model railroad subject, and that it would be a blast to operate.  While I have no plans to build it myself, it doesn't stop me from dreaming about it.  I'd like to hear what others think, and to know if anything similar has ever been done.

Because this post is getting long winded, I'll break it up into pieces below.

This website, and some of it's associated newsletters I receive are adorned with a banner at the top, often showing a nice bit of modeling, under the banner 'yes it's a model'. 

There's one particular one I've always liked, but it hasn't 'popped up' for a while (despite several page refreshes).

It shows a heavily weathered red non dynamic road switcher (looks like a GP40 or similar), long hood forward, pulling (or pushing) a hopper into the woods on a rural setting and just on the grade crossing.