that's a 1910 Pullman!
Showing posts with label rail car diner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rail car diner. Show all posts
Friday, September 12, 2025
this makes my day, a real railroad car diner, AND it's running a gas station too! I don't think I've ever seen that before! Merlin, the Interurban Lunch & Gas Station on US 31 near Whitehall, Michigan (near Grand Rapids) a second hand electric interurban trolley converted to a diner
these are a few of my favorite things!
below photo was taken by the same photographer, and was used as a postcard... that's the same car at the gas pump.
A group of investors established the Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, and Muskegon electrical railroad corporation in 1899.
(there is an 1882 Shay Locomotive in Grand Haven, on N. Harbor Dr)
(there is a WW2 sub in Muskegon, the Silversides)
Two years later the company also purchased the electrical generating equipment, 16 passenger cars, 3 freight cars, 1 open sight-seeing car (used in Highland Park/Grand Haven Beach).
The number of Model Ts on Michigan roads grew quickly and with the development of paved highways along interurban routes in the 1920s, the interurban began to lose money.
The interurban line was purchased in 1925 and went into receivership the following year and finally closed and was abandoned in 1928.
The equipment and the rail cars were auctioned off and the railroad ties were sold to the farmers along the route by the ¼, or 1 mile section for use as long-lasting fence posts. The rail cars were used by their new owners for homes, cottages, and some became roadside diners that were popular at the time.
The interurban cars were all given mythological names as well as numbers.
Merlin, also known as Car #8, was built in 1901 and ran the rails on the lakeshore for the total time the business was active. The sale of all the G. R. G. H. & M. equipment resulted in Merlin being moved to Whitehall, Michigan where it became a roadside diner.
It's now next to the interurban depot and substation in Coopersville
Monday, September 08, 2025
Wednesday, September 03, 2025
American Dog was a canceled CGI animated film written and directed by Chris Sanders
Disney interfered in the movie, and Sanders dropped it. Disney remade it into Bolt!
Yes, this is Ogo, from Kisakaloo. Not many know him, just us lucky few. Well, if you love Stitch, that is
I think this is only the 2nd time I've ever come across a Calliope! Probably no one under 40 even knows what those were
Saturday, August 30, 2025
in Biddeford Maine there is a very old diner, the Palace Diner, and it's not only the oldest diner in the state, but the oldest restaurant as well
The original owner, Louis Lachance, was a locomotive engineer before switching to restaurateur and operating the diner until 1962.
The car was built specifically for Biddeford and has stood at several spots, all within a block of the current Franklin Street location, since then. It was a training dining car, and was made into a full-blown diner.
Summit Diner opened in 1928 and is possibly the oldest diner in New Jersey, out of the 500 in state. It's inside an old railroad car, and it made it onto the list of 30 best diners in the country.
https://summitdinernj.com
https://sueadler.com/the-summit-diner-a-landmark-with-a-hollywood-connection
https://www.tastingtable.com/1942900/old-school-diners-worth-visiting
Update Sept 12th:
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Dad's, a diner in a historic train caboose in Half Moon Bay
Dad’s is a casual spot with serious flavor in Shoreline Station, a strip mall in Half Moon bay.
Owned and operated by Chef Scott Clark, the eponymous "dad" who left the world of fine dining — during which time he was chef de cuisine at San Francisco’s three-Michelin-starred Saison,— after becoming a father.
Beyond spending more time with his child, the luncheonette was an opportunity to return to the spontaneous excitement of cooking.
formerly the chef de cuisine
What's a casual spot? At the end of a strip mall parking lot!
https://www.visithalfmoonbay.org/places/dads-luncheonette/
https://sf.eater.com/2017/1/9/14196150/dads-luncheonette-half-moon-bay
https://www.thetakeout.com/1941696/best-diners-pacific-coast-highway-road-trip/
https://www.dadsluncheonette.com/
https://sf.eater.com/2017/1/9/14196150/dads-luncheonette-half-moon-bay
https://www.thetakeout.com/1941696/best-diners-pacific-coast-highway-road-trip/
https://www.dadsluncheonette.com/
Saturday, February 15, 2025
In 1986, the Demou father and son duo bought an abandoned Sterling Streamliner (In 1978, it was the first ever diner to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.) and moved it to its current location on East Avenue in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. (thank you JS for tipping me to the Stickney streamlined design of diners!)
It is believed that 16 of the the famous Sterling Streamliner diners were produced by J. B. Judkins Co. of Merrimac, MA. (1857-1942) between 1939 and 1942. Sterling bought the design from Roland L. Stickney in 1939.
Stickney was a REALLY good illustrator that I posted about, and showed a lot of his car catalog art in Mar 2023 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2023/03/roland-stickney-was-premier-illustrator.html
The first produced was a prototype and did not have a name fired into the porcelain enamel panel on either side of the front door, as was the standard. The shortest ever produced was 41.5 ft. long, and the longest 54.5 ft. long.
At least one is known to have been in production around the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Production of diners ceased immediately after the US declaration of war. The Judkins company closed its shops in 1942 and all buildings (offices and manufacturing) were sold and later demolished. The last Streamliner diner was never completed but sat outside the Judkins factory for years.
Aside from the Modern Diner, and Salem Diner, four (4) others still survive in one form or another in storage. In order of production these are: Hesperus (406) Streamliner (4011), Jimmy Evan's Flyer (4012), and Lindholm's (4017) Note that all 4 of these were produced in 1940.
Friday, January 24, 2025
Sunday, January 19, 2025
the old Martin Diner that is long gone.
Martin is due North of Plainwell, Michigan, on 10th street.... a mile or so East of highway 131, the main North and South highway on the West side of Lower Peninsula of Michigan
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Yay! One more Silk City diner has been saved and will get another reincarnation!
Found for sale on Facebook Marketplace in Oneida County, it's now been moved 90 miles away to Fair Haven in Cayuga County, it now sits almost on the Cayuga-Wayne County line
It's been Kristina Brewster's longtime dream to own a restaurant. She’s been a cook in many eateries over the years, but always wanted her own place.
Saturday, December 23, 2023
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
an electric streetcar that was Teddy Roosevelt's traincar for a whistle stop tour of Maine, and time as a roadside diner, then became a families Maine summer camp, is getting restored
The Narcissus as the Sabattus Lake Diner in Sabattus, Maine, circa 1940
The Narcissus is the sole surviving high-speed wooden interurban from the legendary Portland-Lewiston Interurban (PLI). The PLI, known as the “finest and fastest in all New England,” operated between the two major population centers in Maine from 1914 until 1933
One of six luxury interurban cars, all named for flowers, Narcissus served two decades. (1912 -1932)
Portland-Lewiston Interurban No. 14, Narcissus had been operating on the new electric railroad for less than two months, when former President Theodore Roosevelt was a passenger on a trip between Lewiston and Portland on August 18, 1914. TR is seen here waving from the number two end train door of the Narcissus to the gathered spectators at the Gray, Maine stop.
For 35 years it was a summer camp for the Vallee family until 1969
and it is now being restored
get a full write up of it's history at
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