The Walther's model is an accurate representation Pennsy's unique N6B cabin cars.

Product Review: Walther's
Milwaukee Road 48-Seat Diner

by Gary Quale

Walthers has released the seventh car in the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha series, an 85’ 48-seat dining car. The model is based on the number 121 to 126 diners built in 1948 for Morning and Afternoon Hiawathas. When assembling one of the Twin Cities trains, note that the Milwaukee Road always operated these diners with the kitchen as the forward end.

These diners use the same construction features Walthers has used on the earlier Hiawatha releases. The cars come with unpainted pre-shaped wire handrails and matching locating dimples on the car. To match the rest of the 1955-vintage Hiawatha train, the diners are painted in the 1950 scheme with black roof instead of gray and without the earlier maroon letter board. The car rides on the same 8’ wheelbase Nystrom trucks Walthers uses on other the other cars in the series.

The car comes with a full interior cast in buff colored plastic, and is designed to accept the Walthers #933-1049 lighting kit. If lighting is added to the car, he modeler may wish to paint the interior in more realistic colors. The center third of dining area had walls with an off-white color covered with a diamond shaped pattern of leaves, and gray chairs. Both of the end thirds had bleached walnut walls, lowered ceilings of yellow and turquoise, and gray-green upholstery on the chairs. The walls in the corridor beside the kitchen were dark wood paneling. The kitchen area was largely made of stainless steel surfaces.

These cars are very similar to the 115 to 120 series diners built in 1947 for the Olympian Hiawatha. The external differences include the air conditioning system and placement of the roof details, so that a modeler could easily adapt these new cars to model those on the west coast trains. The Olympian diners had a unique diagonal table arrangement in the 40-seat dining area when new, which was modified to a more conventional 48-seat configuration in 1951.