In my 12/22/2016 reply to p51/Lee, I mentioned the "Lou-Roc" award. The publisher of a now defunct diner newspaper called "Roadside" created and awarded it to diner owners who needlessly modified their buildings in a way that defaced the original structure. "Mediterranean" or "Colonial" touches and worse were haphazardly nailed onto railcar-style diners to "modernize" them. While converting a rail car or trolley into a restaurant can sometimes save it for future preservation (like the Veteran's Diner that started this post), it's not always the case with diner building conversions. I hope to create some more photo posts about other lucky rail cars and trolleys that have found their way into museums and even back on the rails (!) because they were once turned into "diners".
In the meantime, here's the real Lou-Roc Diner, Worcester, MA, which I photographed in 1992. Under all the brick is a rare New England-based Silk City (NJ) diner. It's rare because it is ironically situated in the home town of one of America's earliest and most prolific diner building manufacturers. Check out those Colonial Revival brick columns! 
Fortunately for the Lou Roc's owners, it has won numerous food awards as well. So many that perhaps they had to encase the bizarre brick porch to create an additional seating area, as shown in the following more recent photo and accompanying student blog. Wonderfully, the new neon sign now sports the railroad-trolley-diner-clock wings motif explored in a previous post:
Today I stumbled on this bonus Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy beauty (!) while researching some of the rail and trolley diners that made it into museums. Its fate is unknown.
The Burlington Diner, 4183 SO. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL. (Circa 1940s. Photo courtesy of Illinois Digital Archives). This rail car diner was, as its name suggests, part of the Burlington Route and was located opposite the stock yards. It opened in 1939 and closed in the 1970s. The rail car was placed on land previously owned by the Mrs. O'Leary's boy, "Big Jim", a Chicago gambler. But look closely ... The owner encased the rail car in red and yellow - BRICKS! Sort of a Lou-Roc before there was a Lou-Roc. From a 2009 blog post:
'The lot stood empty for a decade, then was occupied by the Burlington Diner ..., built inside an old train car, which was decorated inside in the "pop art" style, with every window a different color. The Burlington advertised "The best coffee in town. We never close." But in the early 1970s, with big demographic changes affecting the old "Back of the Yards" neighborhood, the Burlington did close. The site is now again an empty lot, ...'
The Burlington also advertised that it was for "Ladies and Gentlemen". This information was diner code to indicate that not only were ladies welcome, but they wouldn't be expected to straddle a stool at the counter. Instead, the car probably had table seating.
Coming up next! A Lou-Roc'd trolley in California.
Tomlinson Run Railroad
