I thought it would be nice to have a dining car with my MTH UP fleet, but they didn’t make one. Accucraft brought out their streamliner cars and Kidman’s tracked down a UP diner for me. Yeah, the cars are longer, 29.5" compared to MTH’s 27". But what the heck! Bob Weltyk has a nice video on youTube on how he did his diner and it and a phone call from him inspired me to tackle the interior.
Accucraft really packed the seats/tables close together with NO way to get some figures in. I wanted to keep the tables centered on the windows so I took them off and narrowed them and the seats some. The seats were coach seats, so I sanded off the arms on the sides to get more of a chair look and easier to get figures in.
We have some UP dinnerware so I set it up and took a picture of it and shopped it into 4 place settings on a table to fit the narrow tables. Some overhang on the end to simulate the table cloth hanging over the edge. Plastic rod for the glasses on the table give a 3-D effect that way. Jim Carter had done that to one of his diners a few years back. I printed off a page of them and cut them up and attached them with double sided tape. Figures are hot glued in.
Here all the tables are done and the glasses glued on. I made the cooks shorter also. They still don’t show up good! The pots are plastic tubing painted silver.
Detail shot of the diner from the outside. I lightened it up some to show the interior better.
I think the printed table tops give the illusion well enough, considering they will be seen as the car goes by.