The Railway Crossing

Today, 21 August 2025, I am featuring the 1000pc jigsaw from Ravensburger titled The Railway Crossing. This is another, superb illustrative painting bursting with colour and detail, from an inexhaustible portfolio produced by Kevin Walsh. He is a ‘household’ name with respect to transport art and related jigsaw puzzles and has numerous steam railway jigsaws included in his output, from several puzzle sources. Most of these puzzles are described on this blog (just type his name in the search box, to the right). Kevin's name appears on numerous steam railway jigsaw titles from several companies including Ravensburger and Kidicraft. The latter produce a Nostalgia range of 'Premium' puzzles reproducing some of Kevin's paintings that include a steam railway. Some of his paintings are reproduced by several companies.

The painting focuses on a a snow-covered, rural village scene. Centrally placed is a London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) class 'J38', 0-6-0 tender locomotive, passing slowly through a village level crossing. On one side of the crossing is a Bedford bullnose lorry carrying hay; on the opposite side is a red MGA sports car, a man on a Lambretta style scooter, two cyclists, two adult lady pedestrians (one walking a dog and the other clutching christmas presents), and one child. Also in the picture enjoying the snow are children building a snowman, some toboggoning on a hill and others pulling a dog on a sled. The crossing 'keeper' is closest to the railway. Flying magpies and a pheasant, an internally lit cottage close by, and a background church all add to the winter scene. Snow-covered walls, trees and railings make up the remainder of Kevin's artwork. The class 'J38' of 35 locomotives was designed by Nigel Gresley for the LNER in 1926 and built at Darlington Works. The locomotive in the picture is No.65901, signifying British Railways' days (1948-1968), when the '6' was added to the previous LNER number, 5901.