Some weeks back, Len2 on this forum - the repair guru at Tom's Trains Station here in Cary, NC - suggested I make a "shiny diner" for my layout. The real shiny diner (Gypsy's Shiny Diner) here is famous not only for its authentic appearance and dang good diner food, but for the long, drawn out, and no-holds barred fight the owner carried on with city hall for months and months over the right to build it in the first place. Our town has an agency I call the "aesthetic Nazi"s because of the bizarrely tight "appearance rules" they enforce(Talbots could not have its trademark red door, etc.) often in as what seems to me to be as draconian manner as possible. They refused to grant permission to build it on the grounds it did not comply with their rules. The shiny diner and the city fought an epic court battle that resulted in the shiny diner winning! Well, mostly, they have to plant bunch of bushes around it to make it less of any "eyesore." II think its beautiful, and I have immense respect for Len2's encyclopedic knowledge of all toy trains ever made so I had to take his suggestion and model it.
Anyway, my shiny diner completes the entire auto-park area of my layout. I've seen this trick done before so I copied it: mine is made from an 18" aluminum K-Line Lounge car - I had way too many aluminum passenger cars and will never miss this one. Makes for a very quick-to-complete and very shiny diner. I was going to use the lounge car's interior but ended up making another. And yes, that is supposed to be Len2 walking in front of it. First living person I have ever tried to model on my layout. I hope he doesn't mind. I think I got the hat color wrong and the distinguished beard a bit too long and perhaps a bit too white, but I can work on that if I got it wrong. Oh, and yep, that is Veranda Turbine and her husband John Beresford Tipton III in that green Allard, passing in front!
You need to show the folks at Gypsy's a picture of your model. They'll get a kick out of it.