Century-old passenger rail car will be converted into a diner on Route 66

A 110-year-old passenger rail car is being moved to Bloomington, Illinois, so it can be converted into a diner on Route 66.

The decaying Illinois Terminal rail car once sat for more than 30 years at a former depot in Harristown, Illinois, west of Decatur. David Parker of Bloomington was forced to cut the rail car in half so it could be moved by truck.

After it’s moved, he will reassemble and renovate it on his Route 66 property, then reopen it as a diner.

“That way, it can pay for its own preservation,” Parker said in a videotaped interview, who added his wife wants to run a restaurant.

The Decatur Herald & Review caught up last month with Parker, who said he had experience restoring airplanes dating to the 1930s.

The newspaper also had some details about the Illinois Terminal line and its rail cars:

The Illinois Traction System connected cities using electric lines to power small “traction” cars, according to the McLean County Museum of History. In the early 1900s, people could easily travel between Bloomington, Peoria, Springfield, Decatur, Champaign and Danville on such passenger trains.
Sleeper Car 535 was one such car that would have run through the area. The St. Louis Car Co. built the 55-foot car in 1911, which ran until the 1950s when Illinois Terminal ceased passenger service and eventually closed operations permanently

Parker said the rail car also carried troops during World War II.

Parker told the Bloomington Pantagraph he’s spending $10,000 of his own money for the project, but he also launched a GoFundMe.com campaign so others can help.

(Image of the Illinois Terminal rail car from David Parker’s GoFundMe campaign)

3 thoughts on “Century-old passenger rail car will be converted into a diner on Route 66

  1. $10,000? It’s going to cost him $100k+ to do what he proposes. He should speak with the fellow that restored the now-defunct-again Elite Diner in Urbana, IL. That project dragged on for years beyond original target and cost a fortune.

    I wish I’d known about this car before it was cut. I’d have liked to look at it.

  2. That car sat outside the Harristown depot and rotted for decades. It was collapsing under its own weight. Such a shame because that car was still salvageable for museum purposes when it landed there. It’s an enormous loss for a rare aspect of Illinois railway history. I wonder what a structural engineer will say about using that car as a building. You’re right, though: this will cost much more than $10,000 – just to make the carbody structurally sound. To install kitchen equipment and make it fit for foos service? Wow! How can you ever make your money back on it?

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