Randolph,

Please share more information about this artifact at SCRM. What is its provenance and back story? And plans for its future?

Thank you!

Wesley

I am a past member of the board at OERM/SCRM and will quickly provide some information.

The car body is Santa Fe coach #721 built by Pullman in 1906. It was part of group of wooden coaches numbered 714-738. Reported in the book on Santa Fe coaches to have been sold 7/34.

Became a roadside cafe near March Air Force Base. At some time, the stucco end was added to make it look like the UP streamliner. As the highway (US395) was improved over the years, the car was relocated twice.

The with the final upgrade of 395 to Freeway standards the car was obtained by the State and the State moved it to a storage location. The car and the kitchen addition were offered to Orange Empire Ry Museum with a number of requirements. The board felt that these stipulations were burdensome and declined the offer. Later, with the freeway project completed, the State again offered the carbody and kitchen addition to the Museum with funds for a foundation and without any additional stipulations. The donation was accepted with a 5-4 vote of the Board; I being one of the five.

Talking with visitors, I find them often fascinated by the concept of reuse of retired railroad cars.

A historic building survey report was done about the diner. The report can be found at this location: https://www.loc.gov/item/ca1450/

Thank you

It's remarkable that one of the earliest internal combustion streamliners would be represented by a 1906 wood coach,

Phil Mulligan

Sorry for missing this until now. Brian provided a more thorough answer than I could have. SCRM has a number of interesting structures on their campus that could be used to help represent slices of the historical Southern California landscape they represent. There is a lot of potential to create more context for their collection, which may be increasingly necessary as their short mainline is surrounded by more development.