[timmuir]

http://www.elvastowe...eenshot&id=1388
File Name: PE Tower Car #00157
File Submitter: timmuir
File Submitted: 09 May 2012
File Category: Light Electrics

MSTS PACIFIC ELECTRIC RAILWAY INTERURBAN TOWER CAR #00157
6.2 METER AND 7.2 METER TROLLEY HEIGHTS PROVIDED
3D MESH CREATED BY TIM W. MUIR
ARTWORK CREATED BY TIM W. MUIR, USING SOME ELEMENTS FROM CGTEXTURES.COM AND OTHER SOURCES
COUPLER TEXTURES DERIVED FROM PHOTOS BY STEVE THOMPSON

You must have the Bin Patch Installed to Operate This Motor.

This is a model of Pacific Electric's tower car #00157, built of wood with steel underframe by PE at their 7th & Alameda Shops in 1915 as number 1730. It was built to operate on both 600-volt and 1200 volt overhead. This was PE's finest tower car and up to 1929 when tower car #00162 was built, the only one capable of operating over the San Bernardino line. This made 00157 an extremely important piece of equipment and when it was time for overhauls, the tower car was given precedence over everything else in the shops. 1730 was renumbered in 1931 to 00157, in accordance with parent company Southern Pacific's numbering system. 00157 served until 1957 and in the following year was donated to the Orange Empire Trolley (Railroad) Museum, where it resides today. Today's 00157 at the museum has a wider tower platform and base platform than the pre 1940 model's.

In 1936 when PE equipped all it's passenger cars with trolley contact shoes, 00157 was given a trolley wire greaser for keeping all the overhead trolley wires well lubricated from Valley Junction to San Bernardino-Riverside. This consisted of a trolley pole equipped with a cartridge containing grease sticks of PE's manufacture, made of heavy grease mixed with paraffin and graphite, cut into one-foot lengths, 2" by 1-1/2". The grease sticks were held against the wire by air pressure. Other tower cars were so equipped, such as 00162 and 00164, (and ex-1710 was rebuilt as a dedicated wire greaser car as 00150 and is now at Orange Empire RR Museum.).


Although equipped with multiple unit controls, these cars never were operated in MU since PE never installed receptacles or jumpers.

Data:

Car 00157, built in 1915 by PE
31'-0" Between Bolsters
48'-2" Over Buffers
8'-2-7/8" Inside Width
8'-10-1/2"Over Sills
9'-4-1/2" Extreme Width

Weights:
Total - 82000 lbs.

Trucks:
Type - Standard C-80-P - 84"Wheelbase
Size Journals - 5"x 9"
Wheels - 33" -750 lbs. F.C.S. Cast iron

Electrical Equipment:
Motors - 4 - GE-205-E 100 HP 600/1200 Volt
Gear ratio: - 18:56
Control - GE Type "MK" 600/1200 Volt

Brakes - Air and Hand:
Air Brakes - West. Automatic Type EL14
Compressor - One West.Type D-4-K

Braking Power - 100%


The model was created using Abacus Train Sim Modeler Pro. Textures were first created in Paint Shop Pro 7.2 on a multi-layered .psp format file, "built" as needed while the model work proceeded. The main ace from which the lion's share of textures are on is a 2048x2048 map. Bitmap copies of this file were resized to 1024x1024 to work in Train Sim Modeler Pro as the art and model progressed. Graphic utilities used to create Kuju Ace files were PSP7, AceIt and TGATool2a. Polymaster2 was used to create subobjects within the model heirarchy of parts to facilitate the trouble-free use of more than 14,000 vertices.

A second shape file, known as a "freight animation" file, is used to add two crew members and a motorman's stool. The crew members are modified models created by Tom Werb, used here with his most generous permission.

Model Data:

Main Shape:
Parts: 94
Polygons: 31,326

Freight Anim Shape:
Parts:42
Polygons: 6303


Installation and operation:
Unzip to a temporary location and move contents to your /Trains/Trainset folder. Build a consist with your favorite consist editor.

Operation of the animated parts:

Ctrl+NumPad7 actuates the trolley greaser pole. Ctrl+NumPad8 rotates the main trolley pole for reverse moves (it's center-mounted like the other PE tower car, 1716). Ctrl+NumPad9 raises the tower and opens the back doors. I had to do it this way because there aren't enough animation assignments to have all of this stuff animated on an electric. So I had to lock the front doors shut and tie in the tower with the back doors, in order to use one of the DOOR animations for the wire greaser. I tried to make the greaser a pantograph part, but it wouldn't run the motor when down and had to be always up, so I scrapped that idea. It all works pretty well the way it turned out. Just remember that door animations require the car to be stopped with brakes applied in order to operate. The key assignments for the door animations are reversed when cabs are reversed.

Credits and Thanks:

Thomas Pilder for Polymaster v2. I cannot thank you enough for this utility that has widened the scope of model making for myself and others.
Scott M. Miller for AceIt and TGATool. Utilities that I can not live without.
Paul Gausden for Shape Viewer. Indispensible!!!
Tom Werb. Supplying the TSM resource files of his excellent engine crew figures to allow me to "people" my models.
Jim Bebenroth. Enthusiastic PE equipment user and tester. Lighting tweaks.
And all those at Elvas Tower for their support over the years.

A special thanks to Michael Patris, Jim Bunte and all the contributors at Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society (http://peryhs.org/) and the Mt. Lowe Preservation Society who have been providing many photos of various cars and equipment of PE throughout it's lifespan on it's website. Without these photos much detail would have to be guessed at or not made at all.

Also, very special thanks to the late Ira Swett for his invaluable work in preserving PE photos, data, and lore and publishing many works on the subject. Most notable to this modeler are his books printed in 1964 and 1965 "Cars Of Pacific Electric" coming in 4 volumes, numbers 27, 36,37 and 38 (rare official car records and photos), with a supplemental volume #39 following with addendums and corrections. All of these volumes together total well over 800 pages and in a library bound edition (less Vol.39) weighs more than 7 lbs! Data for the box motors come from Volume 3, "Combos, RPOs, Box Motors, Work Motors, Locomotives, Tower cars and Service Cars"(Interurbans Special 37). These books show up on ebay quite often, which is where I obtained my copy.

Tim Muir
Railroad Earth Models
May 9, 2012

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