Nostalgia & History > Sonny Look Santa Fe diner 1488 in Houston

1488 was built by Pullman-Standard in 1940.
It was trucked through downtown Houston in 1972 to be part of Look's Depot restaurant on Market Square owned by "flamboyant" Houston restaurant owner Sonny Look.  
The restaurant closed in 1978 and the car was moved out to the Galleria area - pictured here in 1979.
I don't know what happened to it later on.

Gary

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In 2013 a car very similar to 1488 was "Edna's Diner" located at 175 E Highway 90 in Luling, Texas 78648.  There is a Facebook page for Edna's Diner but it looks closed.  I bet this is it because it has similar glazing and an intact steam ejector air conditioner under the frame like the 1488.  I looked on Google Maps recently and could not find a trace. 
I remember the 1488 car and others that Judge Roy Hoffeinz bought to start a hotel around the Astrodome.  The cars stayed parked along the track parallel to Alemeda Rd. I bet Hoffienz and Sonny Look were in cahoots with each other and both realized how hard it was to work with old railroad cars.

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Hou74-76 Wrote:
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> In 2013 a car very similar to 1488 was "Edna's
> Diner" located at 175 E Highway 90 in Luling,
> Texas 78648.  

That's the same car.  I have heard that the car is now gone but do not know if it was scrapped or moved elsewhere.

This car has never been listed as a Holfheinz car.  It was either purchased by Sonny Look directly from the Santa Fe or from one of the scrappers who Santa Fe sold retired passenger cars to.

Very interesting.
Thanks for sharing this.
Bob

For those of us die-hard passenger car fans here on T-O who love our passenger car minutia, that stencil shown in picture 4 means that the coupler pins on that car were Magnu-fluxed at Topeka Shops on what looks like 4-5-67.  Every lightweight Santa Fe passenger car that you will ever see had those stencils on the end sheets (usually the AL corner) and they can readily be seen on those few Santa Fe lightweight cars still around that never went to Amtrak. 

Thanks Topfuel for the info on the markings, probably not often photographed detail. Was it common to mf coupler pins on passenger cars on other roads cars also?

Posted from iPhone

The car spent a few years in nearby Waelder, TX across from the Sunset Route along US 90 as a burger stand before being moved to Luling.  When Edna's closed the owner had a hard time trying to find a buyer because the car was so rotted and worn out from poor maintenance that it ended up being scrapped on site.  I had dinner in that car on my 16th birthday when it was at Sonny Look's.

Towards the end of the 70's some of Judge Hofheinz's cars were stored along the Santa Fe on a siding east of Hitchcock, TX near Flamenco Isle as you approach Galveston.  Lots of Pennsy and eastern roads were in consist.  Some were also stored in a field along Holmes Road in Houston adjacent to the now defunct Astroworld amusement park.  Part of that parcel of land is now home to Houston METRO's light rail maintenance facility.

Tom Kline
Houston, Texas

PE-717 Wrote:
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> Thanks Topfuel for the info on the markings,
> probably not often photographed detail. Was it
> common to mf coupler pins on passenger cars on
> other roads cars also?
>

I don't know how common this was on other RR's.  It may have been common, or maybe just the Santa Fe was more diligent about that Inspection for some reason.  At any rate, I don't recall any other RR that went out of their way to stencil that info on the car exterior like Santa Fe did.

Thanks all, for the info on what happened to the car.
Gary