Another diner under restoration, from the California Zephyr, link to a previous thread:
http://rypn.sunserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26063&p=117389&hilit=silver+plate#p117389
Chris Allan

Do any museums actually serve dinner in diners... recreate the whole dining car experience?

aren't some of the cars on the Vermont Railway from the Santa Fe's 1937 Budd order?

Also, got word this week of yet another diner saved. Very good news all around on the diner front, despite the few heavywieghts that need some love.

Rob

Green Bay has the heavy weight diner ACL Dothan. I do not know if it is in preserved condition, gutted or modified for some specific use. It was not on their list of cars to be purged from the collection, but the photos I saw when that whole flap came up showed it exhibited outdoors with some evidence of exterior preservation.

I would recommend the dining car operations on the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. While they don't duplicate a specific railroad they do try to emulate traditional railroad dining car service.

Since trying to recreate the entire dining car experience is what ELDCPS is trying to do let me list some of the challenges as we see them:

1. Staff. Do you hire someone to cater the operation? If you do will they do it the way you are looking for? If you hire people can you operate enough to attract good people? Could volunteers work? I think to start we may use a combination of catering and volunteers but the model we would like to try is working with a college that has a hotel and restaurant/culinary degree program. One in particular is just getting their program off the ground. The idea would be that the students and faculty would help us provide the on-board service and in return the students would have a unique experience to put on their resume.

2. Food prep/storage. If you look at most dinner trains they tend to have some prep done off the car or a full "kitchen car". We would like to have much of the food prep done in the original kitchen area (which will have modern commercial equipment layed out as the original equipment was). Some prep might have to be done off the car but to some degree the railroads did that in their commissaries. Also if you are running say Friday-Saturday-Sunday you will need refrigeration/freezer space on the ground. One college we met with also pointed out that in today's world a lot more ingredients are fresh as opposed to the canned/frozen that railroads used, especially for vegetables and to some extent seafood. This will have an effect on storage and prep as well.

3. Stocking a diner. Those of you who have followed our progress know we sell a lot of reproduction items for the project. In addition to the obvious fund raising purpose it has allowed us to put together a list of vendors we can use to actually stock the car. In order to do it right we will need to have an ample supply of china, flatware, holloware, linens, paper supplies, etc. To me the details are what will make it a recreation rather than a dinner train - pouring the cream into your coffee from a heavy hotel silver creamer is a must. I am resigned to using the 18/10 polished stainless for the flatware - it is about 1/5 the cost of silverplate, doesn't react if thrown in the dishwasher with other metals the way silver does, and it will be less painful when passenger try to swipe a souvenir the way their grandparents did (can you say throw mama from the train!)

4. Cost. Let us not forget that dining cars lost a lot of money for the railroads. It will be a balancing act to charge a price that will attract customers and cover costs. As a non-profit we will always be looking for donations, sell stuff (you would like your passengers to buy something - a piece of china, a bag of coffee, a book, anything!), charters and specials. I think we would always look to allow people to ride in another car if they want without eating dinner - once you are out on the road every dollar counts. During the day and on off days I picture bringing school groups to get a history lesson, an extension of our Pullman Project to talk about the role of African American Porters and eventually dining car crews. This has already been an important source of grant funding.

Anyone know if Reading diner 1186 is any closer to being saved?

Not done yet, but it is looking good, this previously mentioned heavyweight SP diner has been under restoration at the Niles Canyon Railway for many years. It had been painted in Daylight scarlet and orange in the 1950s. I believe most of the remaining work will take place below the floor.

The lightweight car to the left is one end of SP Daylight articulated coach 2473-2474. It is also under restoration, but has much further to go. Nevertheless, it will be included in the consist of this year's "Train of Lights."

The Monticello Railway Museum recently acquired (through donation) Illinois Central diner 4112, formerly at the Louisiana Arts and Sciences Center in Baton Rouge, LA. The 36-seat diner was originally built by Pullman in 1946 for the C&EI as #505, "Shakamak Inn" (Lot 6743, Plan 7490) for the run between Evansville, IN and Chicago on the "Whippoorwill" train. The IC acquired the car from the C&EI in 1962 and spent over $80,000 rebuilding it at Burnside Shops in 1963 (about $1 million in today's money).

The 4112 was delivered on its own wheels to Monticello by CN and NS in December of 2007 and, car shop space recently becoming available, is now in the very early stages of restoration. Once restored, the diner will likely be used on special runs as a table car to serve catered meals prepared offsite.

Thanks are due to the Southeast Louisiana Chapter of the NRHS, which arranged the transfer of this car to Monticello from the Arts and Sciences Center. Further details (and photos) are available on the museum's website, http://www.mrym.org, under the heading "Current Projects".

p.s. Another "Whippoorwill" car, RPO/Baggage/Coach #304, "Turkey Run" is also at Monticello, nearly unrecognizable after conversion to Shedd Aquarium fish transport car "Nautilus".

S.P.'s "Cascade Club" articulated triple-unit lounge-diner-kitchen/dorm (Pullman, 1949) is owned by Niles Canyon Railway. It's not high on the restoration priority list yet, but will be a stunning car(s) eventually.

- Doug Debs

The ACL Naples was purchased in the ITM fire sale and thankfully was saved and relocated to Colorado and is currently being restored.