Third Rail Tracks: North America

Third Rail Tracks: North America

This mod adds third rails to the game.
The rails come as new track types and conform to both curves and slopes automatically and with 2 levels of detail.
Their dimensions are based upon third rails around New York and the stylised on the Toronto Subway.
Included are standard and high-speed variants of the 3rd rail.
The 3rd rails do not replace the overhead lines, and are technically non-electrified.

Notes

In general, the mod is pretty straight forward but here’s a few details.
See the images for a visual examples.

Directionality:

The third rail will always be on the right side of the direction that the track is being built. Unfortunately, this can’t be changed after it’s been built so rebuilding the track is the only way to change sides.

Sharp Curves:

Sharp curves do not have any supports. This was a trade off as either there would be none or too many. I went with the none option and instead included the supports as a asset that can be added latter.

Crossings:

Crossings by default will have the 3rd rail running through them. To get rid of them, seperate out the crossing and replace the rail with default rail. The track is identical so they mesh right into each other.

Dimensions:

For any modders looking for the dimensions of the rail to match up with your models, you can find the dimensions below.

1400mm – Centre of 3rd Rail to centre of track

100mm – Elevation above rail running surface to 3rd rail running surface

100mm – Gap between protector board and surface of 3rd rail

These dimensions are close to the tolerances of 3rd rails in the New York area.

Update: 04/03/2020
Instead of using waypoints as the supports and extra 3rd rail assets, these are now track-side assets.
The waypoints are removed but this shouldn’t crash your game, just make all old ones as default cubes.