Southern Pacific Telephone and Registry Stop, c 1930
By Paul DeVerter.
A product of Port City Car Company
Copyright (C) 2003 Paul DeVerter
BACKGROUND
The Texas & New Orleans Railroad Company, a part of the Sunset Route, and owned by the Southern Pacific, operated the SP lines between New Orleans, La. and El Paso, Tex. Before the advent of radio communications, it was necessary for crews to communicate with dispatchers, and to register the presence of their trains in various blocks. This structure was constructed to contain the telephone and shield it from the elements. It could also be used to contain a registry book of trains in the block. This structure was made of a concrete casting, in two pieces, the body and the roof, along with a wooden door, which was not any too wide. The telephone wires eminated from the rear through a hole, about a foot below the roof eave. Generally the structure sat on the right of way, perhaps 10 feet from the nearest rail, and generally a path made of shell, or old ties, was constructed to obtain access without getting your feet wet. The structure was not painted, just weathered concrete.
This structure is modeled from one saved by the Gulf Coast Chapter - National Railway Historical Society, Inc., and rests today at their museum in Houston, Texas. The door shown is a photograph of the one in the museum, and reflects the lack of attention given to these structures by the SP for the last 20 years of their lives. This particular structure comes from Strang Yard, near
LaPorte, Texas. It was retired by the SP about 12 years ago. A photograph of the original is included,
Prototype.jpg.
Similar structures were used throught the SP system, from New Orleans to Portland.
INSTALLATION
All of the necessary files are included. Simply unzip these files to any convenient location, such as a temporary or test folder.
Then you will need to move the various files to the proper locations, and after doing so, you will need to also rename one of the files for the Snow textures folder in Train Simulator.
Assuming you wish to install this Car Stop in the NEC, then follow these instructions. If you wish to chose more than one route, or another route, simply make the obvious changes, substituting for USA1.
Move or copy the following to: Train Simulator\Routes\USA1\Textures
TeleSP2.ace
Move or copy the following to: Train Simulator\Routes\USA1\Shapes
TelephSP.s
TelephSP.sd
Move or copy the following to: Train Simulator\Routes\USA1\Textures\Snow
STeleSP2.ace
And then in the Snow folder rename the file STeleSP2.ace to TeleSP2.ace.
Why? Because the ace file in the Snow Folder must have the same name as the ace file in the Textures Folder, and there is no way to package two files with the same name in this zip distribution.
Finally, you must edit the .ref file to tell the Simulator that the new structure exists. So, go to the root directory of USA1, and find the file
"necorid.ref", which will be the only ref file in the Folder. Open it in WordPad, and copy and paste the following, including the trailing bracket, into that file. Anywhere will do, and the bottom is a convenient place.
Static (
Class ( pdv_buildings )
Filename ( TelephSP.s )
Align ( None )
Shadow ( Dynamic )
Description ( TelephoneBoothSP )
)
Save, and exit.
Now, the fun begins. Drive to a convenient location in the Simulator, press key "0", and note the location at the top of the screen. Now you must open Route Editor and insert the Car Stop at the latitude and longitude that you chose in the Route you have chosen. Instructions for the actually doing so are found in the Route Editor portion of the Simulator documents, and even better instructions are found in the Step by Step Guide to Route Building by Michael
Vone, Published by Abacus, p245, 246.
A convenient practical guide is in the readme of the file stmfacy.zip, by Rick Vernon, in the Train Sim Library.
The bottom base is approximately 12" high from the bevel down, and should be sunk into the ground so that only 6" protrudes. This will give you enough depth to account for uneven ground. You can tell the depth by closely observing the edge of the base. To make it stand upright, if it should tilt on you, simply hit the "n" key when in wireframe mode.
