HO scale dining car tables and chairs?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi gang,

I’m looking for a source for HO scale dining car tables and chairs. I have tried to search Shapeways but their search engine is useless IMHO. I tried Walthers but the only HO scale kit which was offered by Palace Cars was crude and expensive.

Any suggestions?

I’m tempted to order one of the new Rapido dining cars with place settings on the tables, but I’m not sure I can justify chopping up a $150 car for parts![swg][(-D][(-D][(-D][:o)]

Dave

2

Dave

It depends on which road and era your modeling. I model the early 50s SP and after researching their diners I came up with this.

The chairs came from Shapeways. I made the walls and tables from the plastic scrap bin.

There are several interiors on Shapeways ($32) that look very nice but my scrap bins are a bunch cheaper. My son is very good at 3D CAD so I had him draw up an interior but Shapeways wanted $22 to print it, still a bit too pricy for me for something that might not look good enough to use.

3

Hi, Dave

I have used the Preiser kit for this purpose on some of my cars.

https://www.preiserusa.com/Preiser-17219-Tables-with-table-cloth-chairs-buffet-tables-Kit

The chairs are finely molded and the tables can be trimmed if you wish to place them against the dining car wall.

Preiser also produces a kit that includes some dishes, pots, pans, glassware and “food” if you really want to get detail-crazy.

https://www.preiserusa.com/Preiser-17220-Table-ware-food-Kit

If you are only looking for “basic detail” I used an old AHM or Rivarossi dining car interior in this brass car. I was only looking for the “feel” of tables and chairs.

PRR_D78c-4418 by Edmund, on Flickr

Something like THIS might be passable (you would need at least two for a full-length HO diner).

Good Luck, Ed

4

My road is probably too short to require a diner, but I keep making them, then getting rid of them, only to buy another in a year-or-so.

This is a somewhat modified Rivarossi diner, which didn’t come with an interior…

I made a “representation” of an interior, but have yet to slice-up and paint a bunch of seated LPBs…

The “tables” and banquette-style “seating” are .060" sheet styrene. When (or if) the hungry passengers eventually show up, I’ll punch plates from .005" or .010" sheet styrene, and make glasses and cups from styrene rod.
I don’t do night running or light my passenger cars, so a lot of detail isn’t really necessary.

Here’s one of my earlier Rivarossi diners. Rather than selling it, I simply shortened and modified it into a combine, usually used in mixed-train service…

Of course, there’s always the chance that Magnetawan could end-up as a combine, too. [:-^]

Wayne

5

Finding this kind of stuff became harder when Walthers made the very deliberate choice a few years ago to no longer carry many lines of small parts. Using an old paper Walthers catalog will find more options.

Precision Scale Co (PSC) has passenger car interior parts. Including dining car tables and chairs and buffet lounge stuff like settees and semi circular seating. See their free PDF page 35-36.

https://www.precisionscaleco.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/HO-Passenger-WOP.pdf

Indeed if you are going for this level of detail on passenger cars you’ll want to review that entire HO catalog. Note that the new owners of P.S.C. also offer the PIA line of locomotive parts which I think is ex Kemtron.

Suydam used to offer very basic wood interior details which served particularly if the views were mostly through the windows, rather like the AHM/Rivarossi plastic interiors (which to me always looked like they were made on a Mattel Vac U Form toy). Walthers used to offer an extensive line of passenger car interior parts which has been discontinued along with the rest of their cast metal detail parts lines - but still found at swap meets.

Dave Nelson

6

Good Stuff Guys! Thanks for the info.

Mel

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

7

I bought a set of tables and chairs. I think they may have been from Preiser. They are plain without tablecloths, but I use them in the big windows of bars and restaurants. I don’t have a detailed diner car, but they would work.

I guess I would scratchbuild the tables, though. Scraps of styrene with tablecloths made of paper would look fine inside a dimly lit passenger car.

8

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions!

I was very tempted to go with the 72’ Athearn dining car interior, partly because it also offered kitchen and serving area details, but instead I have decided to just order chairs from Shapeways and I will scratchbuild the rest of the furniture/equipment myself.

I want the interior to have some finer details because the trolley diner will be located right at the edge of the layout and the windows on the trolley shell are quite open, i.e. easy to see into. I want the tables to be set so I will need to source some cutlery, plates and glasses. I’m not sure if I have the patience to make them all myself.

Thanks again,

Dave

9

Again, those car windows, even large ones, give you a lot of room to improvise. I have some model beer bottles, and I think that a couple of full 3D items can create a believable scene, particularly combined with a printed surface. Have you tried a printed white table, with cutlery printed on, perhaps a thin styrene disk, maybe with a decal pattern, for plates and then some bottles?

People want to believe. Get them halfway there and let their imagination fill in the rest.

10

I used a small paper punch to make the plates on this table:

IMG_0027_fix by Edmund, on Flickr

Preiser figures and some kitchenware from their set.

Diner_patrons4 by Edmund, on Flickr

I had planned to try to make something similar to what Rapido has done. Actually most diners I’ve been in didn’t have all those placesettings out anyway. Only after patrons arrived. Sure looks nice, though.

Diner_patrons7 by Edmund, on Flickr

Visitors always are amazed to see these details.

Regards, Ed

11

My only dining car has frosted windows, so no visibility there. But I did give it a name plate, for Alferd G. Packer, the only American ever convicted of cannibalism.

12

Hi Dave,

I’m surprised that no one mentioned Palace Car Company directly on their site instead of from Walthers. I didn’t think it was that expensive. They offer parts for complete car interiors for a variety of passenger car makers or you can order the part separately. I’d like to see what your interior looks like when you are done since I’m in the same boat, trying to come up with interior for 6 Rivarossi smooth side passenger cars.

Scott Sonntag

13

Most of the Rivarossi smooth-side cars that I had didn’t have interiors, but I found that the seats from Pike Stuff, when cut into separate seats, were pretty good for coaches, at least. Partitions for washrooms, smoking sections and rooms can be done with sheet styrene - I use the .060" thick material, as I always buy it in 4’x8’ sheets, so have lots on-hand…

I don’t recall for certain, but I think that I used the same seats in the diner, with tables scratchbuilt from the same thick styrene…

Wayne

14

Hi Scott,

Thanks for reminding me about the Palace Car Company. I have looked at their stuff in the past.

I have changed my mind about using the Shapeways chairs and instead I’m going to go with the Preiser dining table/chair sets that Ed has suggested:

https://www.reynaulds.com/products/Preiser/17219.aspx

The Shapeways chairs that I was going to use are a bit on the large side. I already had a few on hand, and they would have been too crowded in the trolley shell. The Preiser table can be trimmed if need be, as Ed suggested.

Dave

15

Thanks Wayne. I will have to check those out.

Scott

16

While my Rivarossi lightweight cars were sold-off some years ago, I also had several Rivarossi heavyweight Pullmans, and decided to modify them into simple coaches, as my railroad is too short to need even one Pullman - I do occasionally run a CNR Pullman in my trains, but it’s simply to make connections between interchange points.
Here’s one of the former Pullmans as a coach, with the cut-apart Pike Stuff seats…

(simply click on the photo for a larger image)

I have lots of seated passenger figures, but painting them is not all that high on my list of things-to-do.

Wayne