A recent post on the Random Photos of Trolley Cars topic caught my eye:
It is of Toronto Transit Commission work car W-1. According to the TTC website, this car was in use from 1911-1967; it was built by the Toronto Railway Company. What got my attention was the "barrel" shaped roof, which is outlined by bare light bulbs. This design reminded me of some barrel-roofed diners that also outlined their roof curve in bare light bulbs. There seemed to be a visual and esthetic connection between these trolley and diner uses. It's hard to say how functional the lighting would be. (In the background you can see a straight roof line with bulbs, too.)
I set off to find more trolley cars with round roof lines and light bulbs. There were other historic TTC work cars with rounded roofs, but I only found one other with light bulbs:
C-1, a crane car, is now at the Halton County Railway Museum. Here is the parent link with more photos and information; look in the "Works Cars Image Archive":
http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4510.shtml
(The website says that the C-2 went to the Ohio Railway Museum, but their roster says that it was only the body and it was scrapped.) In two Google Images searches, no other streetcar companies turned up with rounded roofs that looked like diner roofs. Only TTC so far.
Zooming in on these two photos shows that, while the light bulbs follow the contour of the roof line, they are actually set in the cab wall, not the roof line itself. Regardless, the three-part ends of the cars, their curved roofs, and the light bulbs remind me of the following diner examples. All the photographs are mine:
1930s Arthur's Paradise Diner, Lowell, Mass., Worcester Lunch Car Co. You can't see the side divided into three sections like the work cars from this close-up, but it's there. Taken last year:
ca 1933 Kenwood Diner, Spencer, Mass. (taken circa 1978):
The following links have better and more recent photos that show light bulbs actually in the sockets. Unfortunately, Google Maps says that the Kenwood Diner is "Permanently closed".
https://dinerhunter.com/2011/0...od-diner-spencer-ma/
http://www.roadarch.com/11/6/kenwood.jpg
1947 Roberto's Cafe, an all-steel diner built on site, Providence, RI (taken 2000). This view shows the sockets for six light bulbs. Here you can see how the end is divided into three sections:
This lighting feature on diner barrel roofs has always reminded me of something that you might see on a circus wagon or caravan. Now, it will remind me of two historic TTC cars.
Tomlinson Run Railroad
