Read Family Stopped at a Railroad Crossing

Arthur and the Read family are stopped in their family car at a railroad crossing somewhere outside of Elwood City. They are waiting for a freight train to go by. Even though you cannot see him, Buster Baxter is in the car with them.

This picture is based on my fan fiction story Stopped At A Railroad Crossing, which you can find through this link: www.fanfiction.net/s/10243515/…

In case you're interested and if you're a railfan like myself, this railroad crossing has two American style mast crossing signals with 8 3/8" (8" for short) incandescent flashing red lights in 20" backgrounds, mechanical bells and red and white striped crossing gates with 3 red gate lights mounted on them. You can only see one of the gates though but the other gate is the same. The gate lights are 4" incandescent gate lights.

I made this picture for several reasons. One reason is because I like railroad crossings, especially with flashing red lights and gates. And I like American style crossing signals best as pictured, I mean I do like non-Amercian style signals like the ones used in Germany and the United Kingdom, but I like the American signals and the American-like signals used in other countries outside the U.S.

I also like red and white striped gates and gates with lights mounted on them, especially three lights. And not many people make crossing gates with lights on them but I usually do because that's how crossing gates are in real life, at least in the U.S. and other countries. But there are some other people who do crossing gate lights so I'm not the only one and I'm glad too.

I also made this picture, and others that you will see later, because I want to see at least one railroad crossing on the show ARTHUR, hopefully in an upcoming episode, maybe in Season 18 (let's not get our hopes up for that even though Season 18 is coming,) Season 19, or, if they ever do it, Season 20. And I'd like the railroad crossing on Arthur to look like this one, not just featuring American crossing signals and a gate, but a red and white striped gate with three red lights on them, something you rarely get to see on cartoons and animated shows since most cartoons and animated shows show gates without lights mounted on them. And I would like to see what a railroad crossing would look like on Arthur.

I'm okay with seeing crossing gates without lights on them, their easier to draw and probably easier to animate, and most people don't pay attention to those kinds of details, or may not think they're that important, but I would like to see more cartoons include crossing gates, regardless of the stripe color (red and white, black and white, or black and yellow) with red lights. And there can be one light, two lights, or even up to four lights, but I prefer three lights per gate.

Thankfully there are some cartoons that put lights on their gates, or are starting to.

There are some cartoons I wish I could have seen a railroad crossing on, like Calliou, Maya and Miguel, and Kim Possible. I like to see the different styles of railroad crossings varying from cartoon to cartoon, and I like that some cartoons have almost realistic crossing signals and gates, even if the gates lack lights.

The train in the picture doesn't belong to a railroad company in particular. They kind of sort of look like they could be Conrail locomotives, given their blue color, but you decide which railroad company they belong to, I didn't really care which railroad company this train belonged to.

To make the Read Family Car, one source I had to use was this one: img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20…

I plan to make a lot more of these, at least for Arthur for now.

You're invited to use or copy and even repost my picture if you want but please credit me for it.

Thanks for looking and for reading this.