In Jerry's Passenger Car Photos, I came across

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/wp506.jpg

Of interest, is the roof line, whith celerestory over the dining end, and streamlined roof over the kitchen area. Is this a one off or do all heavyweight WP dining cars have this feature, or was the newer style over the kitchen area the result of a repair?

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Can't speak about whether or not other cars on WP had a similar modification to the roof but it should be noted that the raised portion of the roof is taller than a typical car's roof would be and that the rounded portion is at the height that most would have been. Wonder if it was some sort of modding done to air conditioning?

That raised section reminds me of the air conditioning duct on the MILW X-5000. I can't see a riser on the side of the car, or an Ice Engine underneath, but it could have different A/C equipment.

Photo of the duct on the X-5000: (note the top of the duct is white in this shot.)

Yeah, I agree. At the far right of the photo, it looks like the diner is coupled to a car with a standard railroad roof, and the roof lines match. That means the arch roof on this car is NOT the lower 13'-6" arch of lightweight cars, but rather an older arch, such as was used on the "Harriman" cars from the early part of the twentieth century. These cars had to be problematic to air condition, as the convenient notch along the outside of the upper deck doesn't exist. One either installed a new, lowered headlining, or did something like what is in the photo.

I had Guy Dunscomb's book out on WP steam and passenger cars this evening, so I looked up the WP dinning car in question. The cars were built named but were later numbered 501 to 508. Car 506 was originally named "Stockton". The cars were built as arch roof cars by Pullman in 1923 as lot 4717. This is when the WP was buying all new steel passenger cars to replace the leased Rio Grande cars. Safety Carrier Air Conditioning was added in the 1930s. There is no mention of the roof line change, but in going through the book there are a number of train pictures showing the dual style roof. The WP coaches were all arch roof cars and the Pullman cars were clerestory roofs. The dinners were between the coaches and Pullmans and the roof line makes them look like a transition car. It appears that all eight dinners got the same treatment. Car 506 was retired in 1958 and was sold to a scrap dealer. No telling when it was actually scrapped.