Some recent additions to my collection. These photos were taken in 1965. There used to be quite a few trolley conversions in the mid atlantic (and elsewhere), but they just didn’t hold up as well as factory built diners. By the time they came into service as diners, most had served a full lifetime of service on the roads, so the condition was obviously not as good as a factory built diner. It took work, money and some jerry-rigging to change them over from transportation to food service. But they could be picked up and converted on the cheap, so they were a good way to get into the business. It seems most owners traded up to a proper factory built diner, or to a on-site construction once they had earned enough money to do so, so the trolleys didn’t survive very well.
Maryland
Maryland
Virginia
Virginia
Diner Hunter 
in your research have you come across any info on where (which interurban lines) these cars came from?
It really depends on the location and era- Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington. Whenever the cars wore out or were replaced, they were sold off cheap- some became houses, sheds, farm storage, some became diners. I’ve even seen a steamlined one in Virginia that was set up in the ’60s when the district line went out A lot of these places didn’t last very long or didn’t leave very many records of their existence. If it were possible to find out when some of these places opened, it might be possible to cross reference with which lines were selling off cars. But whereas it’s fairly easy to date factory built – purpose built diners, it’s pretty much impossible to pin down an exact date of a conversion just by looking at it, and like I say, these places just didn’t leave very many records.
There is a great diner right near this Deepwater Diner you visited … Pennsville Diner in the tiny town of Pennsville.. Great food and soooo clean. We would love for you to to see and blog about the place we love to eat !!!