Carl at a Railroad Crossing
A/N: First of all, I don't own Arthur or the characters, they belong to Marc Brown. Secondly, this story does not feature Arthur or any of the other common characters, it features another character and one that isn't seen very much. Carl is the featured character as is his mother. This is a one-shot story (I think) and even though I think I planned to write this, this story is spontaneous and supposed to be ala-prima (started and finished all in one day, my last art teacher, I think, taught us that word, or at least I think I learned it from her.)
The Story
Carl is in the car with his mother and is sitting in the front passenger seat. They are driving along the country side, well, Carl's mother is anyway. The windows are down and the radio is on. Carl enjoys the car ride.
Then suddenly, up ahead in the distance, red lights begin to flash. Carl and his mother are coming up on a railroad crossing and the gates start to go down a few seconds after the lights turn on.
"Cool!" says an excited Carl, "we get to see a train go by!"
"We sure do," says Carl's mother, "my train-loving baby!"
Carl's mother pulls up to the crossing and stops at the railroad gates after they are down. Carl can hear one of the crossing bells ringing once they're at the crossing. Carl and his mother then turn to their left and see the approaching train.
"Here comes the train!" they both say at the same time.
Then as usual and as in real life, the train's horn blows with two long blasts, a short blast, and a long blast as the lead locomotive roars through the crossing.. First there's a blue locomotive, then a red locomotive, both facing forward, and then one more blue locomotive, which is facing the opposite direction.
As the lights on the crossing signal blink and the even smaller lights on the gate wink, except for the steady light near the tip of the gate, and the bell makes its music, the freight train passes by at 65 miles per hour.
"There are some box cars, Mom," says Carl.
"There sure are!" says Carl's mother.
"Some of them are brown," says Carl, "I hate brown. But some of them are green and some of them are blue. I love blue!"
"I know you do," says Carl.
As the train continues to pass…
"Look," says Carl, "some tankers. They carry hazardous materials. I hope they stay on the track and reach their destination safely. It's usually disastrous when those kinds of cars derail."
"I would say so too," says Carl's mother.
"Tankers carry gasoline," says Carl, "and I think they carry other kinds of liquids."
Most of the tank cars that pass by are black but some are white.
"There are some covered hopper cars," says Carl, "they carry grains."
Carl also sees some open hopper cars and gondola cars.
"I like those cars but I wish they weren't brown," says Carl, "they'd look better if they were blue, or some other color.
Carl does get a little bit of an added bonus when he sees one of the tankers.
"Did you see that mom?" asks Carl. "That tanker was painted like a rainbow! I think it was red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple!"
"I saw it too Carl!" says his mother. "That was a very pretty car."
"It sure was!" says Carl. "One of the best cars I've ever seen! I hope I see another one like that again!"
"Maybe you will," says Carl's mother.
"I sure hope so," says Carl.
The train pretty much switches cars as it passes by. What that means is, there are many different freight cars one after another, like after a box car or a set of box cars, you see a tanker car or so or a hopper car or so. It's not, first box cars, then tank cars, then hopper cars, even though there are some of the same freight cars in a row, but then the freight car types change as the train flies by.
The train takes approximately 3 minutes and 17 seconds to pass by and then the last car of the train clears the crossing, revealing the signal and gate on the opposite side of the crossing, and some cars stopped on that side. Some cars have also pulled up behind Carl's mother's car.
A very happy Carl claps his hands and says "Yay."
His mother joins him in clapping and cheering.
Then the bells stop ringing, but the lights continue to flash until the gates are 98 percent of the way back up. A second and a half after the lights stop flashing, the gates are all the way back in their home position.
Then Carl's mother drives across the tracks.
"That sure made my day," says Carl.
"I'm sure it does," says his mother.
"I can't wait to see another train," says Carl. "And I hope to see freight cars that are not brown, but a different color instead, like blue. In fact, I wish I had my own freight train, that way I can paint all the brown cars on it blue."
"That sounds like a good idea, Carl," says his mother, "that would be very nice to see!"
"I'd be really happy if I saw a train with nothing but blue cars," says Carl, or some blue cars but no brown cars."
"I'm sure you would be," says Carl's mother.
And away goes Carl and his mother.
The End
A/N Carl seems to have a really good idea about blue freight cars instead of brown freight cars. Maybe someday Carl will get to see such a train. I cannot wait to see how he'll react when he sees such a train. He'll probably get a bellyful, or rather an eyeful.
Stay tuned, more railroad crossing stories to come for Arthur and for other cartoons.
Added June 25th: I have officially decided to do a sequel to this story.
I also want to add that I thought this story wasn't going to be long enough and I wouldn't have enough ideas for this story as I was writing but this story turned out to be longer than I hoped I'd make it.
But please stay tuned for the sequel, maybe I'll have it up within 2-3 weeks. It was also have Carl and his mother in it but I don't plan on putting Arthur or Buster or any of the other common characters in it.
Cover Image: The Cover Image used for this story is a picture I took of a railroad crossing back in 2006 and the picture of Carl is taken from a screenshot from the episode "Buster Spaces Out" found on the Arthur Wikia website, only I copied and pasted Carl on a blank picture, erased the areas around Carl and then copied and pasted it on a copy of the photo.
If you want to know more about the railroad crossing devices: This crossing has two silver standard mast signals, white 90 degree crossbucks with RAILROAD CROSSING in black letters, but gray on the back. The lights are 12" and incandescent and have 24" black backgrounds. The bells are General Signals type 1 electronic bells and the gates are fiberglass gates with diagonal reflective red and white stripes with three 4" incandescent gate lights each.
To see what I mean by General Signals type 1 electronic bells, or hear what I mean, see Mike's Railroad Crossing Website. There are lots of pictures of railroad crossings and some bell sounds and also some information about railroad crossings and different kinds of signals, lights, bells, gates, etc and in different locations in and outside the United States. General Signals type 1 electronic bells are my most favorite railroad crossing bells in the world. Western Cullen Hayes mechanical bells are my most favorite mechanical bells and W.R.R.S. mechanical bells are my next favorite mechanical bells. I also like the General Signals type 2 electronic bells and the Western Cullen Hayes electronic bells, and we have several of those here in Tucson, but they're not the best sounding bells to me. I hope to include wooden A-frame (wishbone gates) in some of my future stories.