D&RGW Telephone Booth (Outhouse)

: Cisco, UT. Sep. 11, 2014

I’m trying to duplicate the whole town of Cisco, Utah in N scale. This post introduces one of the structures in the town.


On the north side of Railroad Street/US Hwy 50 & 6 along the town of Cisco existed several railroad facilities constructed by the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad(D&RGW). One of the facilities, a telephone booth/outhouse still remains today.

A telephone booth is located a little apart from the railroad Section Tool House on the north. Today, it appears to be a tired outhouse with a vent cap sticking out of the roof: it was used as so by Geena Davis in the movie Thelma & Louise, which went on location at Cisco in August 1990.

But this is the genuine Rio Grande Telephone Booth built exactly to the Rio Grande Standard Plans first drawn in Jan. 1944[1].

According to ICC Valuation map, D&RGW originally didn't have any telephone booth at Cisco. The photo of Cisco townsite taken in 1969 also lacks the booth: it might have brought in from somewhere after that to use as an outhouse[2].

A similar structure is preserved at the nearby Western Mining and Railroad Museum at Helper, Utah. According to Trainorders.com post, this is a switchman’s shanty recovered from the switches at West Helper in the late 1980's[3].

I drew model plans referring to the Rio Grande Standard Plans. The result is shown below.

[1] Standard Telephone Booth, D&RGW Standard Plans;
[2] Jordan, Kathy ‘Uranium King’ Charlie Steen started out in Cisco tar­paper shack, Mar. 24, 2011 Grand Junction Daily Sentinel;
[3] Grandegold (2009) Trainorders Era Phone Booth at Gilluly, Trainorders.com;

: Helper, UT. Sep. 10, 2014

: model drawings for Rio Grande Telephone Booth


ユタ州を走るD&RGWの沿線にある／あった、Ciscoという町を紹介している。この小さな建物は線路の北側にポツンと建っている。2014年に撮影した写真にあるように、現在は放置されている。

この建物は鉄道電話ブースである。D&RGW が1944年に作成した標準図面に則り建てられている。もっともベントキャップが見えるので、便所に転用されたのかもしれない。映画「テルマ＆ルイーズ」の中でも便所として画面に登場する。

中には、標準図面によれば、扉をぎりぎりかわす奥行き寸法で、引き出し付きのカウンターが間口一杯に設けられていたようだ。現在はがらんどうである。電灯は元々付いていなかったらしい。

似た建物はHelperの博物館にも保存されている。Rio Grandeのそれとは少し形状が異なる。Utah Railwayの、こちらはswitchman’s chanty（転轍手詰所）のようだ。