To see textures, you need the AceIt utility. Ensure aceit.dll and nvidia_dds.dll are in the same folder as SFM 2.5. Without these, the texture preview window will remain black.
. If you have downloaded a piece of rolling stock from a site like Elvas Tower , you can use SFM 2.5 to: Elvas Tower Compress and Uncompress msts shape file manager 2.5
MSTS shape files come in two states: (compiled, unreadable, used by the game) and Uncompressed (plain text, editable). SFM 2.5 toggles between these. To see textures, you need the AceIt utility