I just found this cool piece of history.
In the 1930s, there was a person named Alonzo Billups, and apparently, one of his relatives got hit by a train at an open crossing. So, he made a giant board, which had neon tubes, and used a siren instead of bells. It was robbed of the neon tubes during WW2 and had to be constantly relamped. Also, many said that the siren would be stuck on for hours after the train passed, due to the relays getting stuck. It was removed in the 1970s, but the concrete base is still present.
Semi-Accurate animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGhFHKtDhnsMost animations get the lights wrong.
The skull on the top was lit up by a normal incandescent fixture above it. The words were made from red neon tubes, and the dashes in between were blue coloured neon tubes. There was also a neon tube, surrounding the outer border of the sign, in unknown colour.
An interesting feature was that there were two neon arrows below, that would show the direction where the train would be going.
There were also a normal set of crossing lights below the neons, which were meant to flash only when the neon system failed.
The siren was a Federal Signal Model A.
I just thought this would be an interesting find
