My wife and I discovered this place a few years ago on a trip down the coast. It was a fun place to eat and the food was good too. Just looked up the history of these cars and found it quite interesting. Here's a link to the story. History - ROCK AND ROLL DINER
Last summer I was on a heritage station hunt in the Laurentians north of Montreal, and stumbled across these two, repurposed into a snack shack (foreground) and an office (background) for the company that runs a bike-shuttle service to points north on the ex-CPR right-of-way turned into a bike-hike trail, in St-Jerome, Quebec, near the former CP station in that town: Interesting that a pair of GTW cabeese sit on former CPR rails to serve their new purpose. They are in very nice condition.
In Los Angeles' famous Sunset Strip area, this former UP dining car was converted to Carney's, a hot dog/burger restaurant in 1975. It's a local icon today! And just a couple miles southeast of Carney's is another Hollywood icon, the restaurant/bar known as the Formosa Cafe, which includes former Pacific Electric interurban #913 (built in 1904) integrated into the western side of the building. The old PE streetcars used to run just outside the restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard until 1948.
The UP in Cheyenne repurposed this old hopper for sand, next to the famous steam shop, and with plenty of fresh overspray, it was almost still sticky (~2003): Boxcars as sheds, livestock shelters, etc, are not new, but here's some that used to be in Black Eagle, MT (2008): This ancient NP ballast car was repurposed as a Mullan Tunnel icebreaker car (2007-8):
On a trip to Colorado almost 29 years ago we drove by this Santa Fe covered hopper that had been turned into a what appears to be a loader for feed. This was in La Junta on US 50. I don't think it's there any more as recent street view photos show the business torn down. I stopped on that trip in 1994 and took my own photo but this one from railpictures.net is much better.
This old BN box car was supposedly used for some sort of tunnel maintenance, on Marias Pass in Montana. I could never determine exactly what or how it was employed:
I suspect those very low "handrails" on the car's roof are attachment points for the safety gear of anyone working on top. Or a tool car. Or both. Looking it up, it's been in MOW service since at least 2007, according to one photo here: ( http://rrpicturearchives.net/rspicture.aspx?id=259695 ) Best guess after only a few sips of morning coffee.
Street view shows it still there as of October 2022. It is a lot farther east of the train station than I remember it. https://goo.gl/maps/XNwdQbX5wv2wZUvJ6
And I recall it being on the north side of the road. Could it have been moved ? In any case, glad it's still around.
There's a similar one up at Gold Bar, Wa in a MoW train, I think it's used for maintenance in the Cascade Tunnel.
My other favorite repurposed railroad equipment in La Junta. A park ornament. https://goo.gl/maps/7ExkLS7QtnQbUtE2A A not so good photo from the train. Got my refection from the glare in the window. https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?media/prairie-in-the-park.94452/full&d=1436192865
One of only a few places where one can be legitimately accosted by someone asking "Wanna buy a bridge?". Nice outside display!
