How to get the value of the actual diner structure of Munson's diner
(aka Nick & Marinos Diner LTD), located at 600w49th st.,NYC,NY.10019,
when seperated and removed from the real property. Structure is a
Railway car.

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Request for Question Clarification by darrel-ga on 11 Feb 2004 13:22 PST

MightyMG--

My initial thought is to have this officially appraised by an expert
in railroad structures. Have you tried this, or is there some reason
not to go this route?

darrel-ga

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Clarification of Question by mightymg-ga on 11 Feb 2004 13:49 PST

Structure is now a diner fixed to real property.  It does not appear
to be usable as a railroad structure . Value is perhaps as a
collectors item &/or
a prop for screen/stage/photo.

Like many things we would like apprased, even a wild guess is
difficult. On the low end:  $10 as the art investor needs to pay
consciderable to move the dinning car, there are storage costs until
someone leases or buys the car. There may be conciderable cost,
conditioning the car so it can travel on it's own wheels even a short
distance. It might be necessary to dismantal the car extencively to
move it even short distances. Typically larger movie production
companies already have a dinng car or can computer modify old movie
footage seamlessly into the new film. Small studios rewrite the script
if they can't do a dinning car sequence on the cheap. On the high
side, $100,000 is a real long shot in my rather poor opinion as I am
not a fan of colletable. A collectable that big gives new meaning to
fluff in my opinion.   Neil

As a long-time member of a Railroad Museum, I have seen many railroad
and trolley cars that have been incorporated into buildings.  I myself
have actually helped remove them because of the historical
significance of the car, at least as it applies to the goals of the
museum.  But, the museum has seldom paid more than a nominal amount
for the actual "thing", although it has paid goodly sums to move the
hulk, and even more to restore it.

If you look at EBAY and search under "diner" or "dining car" you will
find several attempts at selling these things, typically in better
shape than you indicate.  They simply do not sell.

BUT, if you think that it might be of interest to a railroad museum,
TRAINS.COM has a listing of railroad museums that you might want to
contact.