Model Railroading on the Cheap

    This is a plaster casting of many years ago. It is an old street car repurposed for a restaurant (that is better than using one as a chicken coop)! My friend Bob Wise diligently painted it by hand (there are over 100 windows) and used it on his model railroad calling it Ray’s Diner and placed it on his layout along with nice shrubbery, picket fence, and stepped entrances. He later gave it to me and I had to move a couple buildings to come up with a place to put it. I thought it would look good in Hillton between the railroad and the edge of town. I wanted to change its name and sat it upon a paved parking lot of printed paper for customers with automobiles. With my vocation and travels of office machinery service I had learned long ago that the best lunch is found at some local beanery, not a fast food joint. Bob’s Diner is just such a homey place. He serves a “Blue Plate Special” every day along with a scheme -“Yesterday’s Lunch Free” to encourage repeat customers by having them sign their name on their bill when they pay and drop it in a box. Each day he draws a bill from those in the box and pins it on the bulletin board. Then at lunch time if you find your yesterday’s bill on the board – you get that amount deducted from today’s bill returned as a thank you.

   I like the operating challenges provided in modeling a peddler freight oriented railroad. We modelers with a room sized space should concentrate on moving freight cars – not train load lots as the prototypes do. Folks with just a room size space for a layout should not plan on 30 car trains of a commodity like those of modern day railroads.