Sorry I couldn't respond sooner, but I didn't even know about this Website. And one can't imagine my surprise at finding that Venango was a subject of some speculation that's a "bid wide of the mark." The Hiram was an ex-NYC business car CSS leased from Buzz Norton, as Mitch correctly stated, in exchange for protection, maintenance and use. Somehow, after Venango sold the CSS to Citibank in November 1988, Citibank's management "team" (a/k/a "Frick and Frack") must have converted that lease to some form of ownership interest, and the car was later sold to the TP&W.
Contrary to Mitch's inaccurate and misleading allegation regarding the "Duneland" acquisition, there was nothing "dubious" (his word) about that purchase. The deal was straight purchase deal. Venango bailed the owner out of a tight situation (they had to move the car or loose it) and acquired an ownership interest in exchange for so doing. The owner (an historical association of some kind) could use the car under certain conditions (the details of which, after all the years, now escape me). Here again. we don't know what Frick and Frack may have done with that agreement. The letterboard decals were among a number of such decals John Dukehart purchased from 3M for the old cars during the Chessie days.
There was a second diner, known locally as the white elephant (in part, because, it was covered with a badly applied coat of white paint) which was essentially abandoned on CSS property. I have no idea what became of that car. Its highest and best use may have been as scrap.
So far as "whack-a-doo schemes of the Venango era," under Venango, not every creative idea passes "final muster." Some ideas, such as the dinner train, died on the drawing board -- so to speak. However, CSS's EBITDA ("Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization") went from $1.3 million in 1985 to $5.3 million in 1988. That's a not-too-shabby 59.7% per year compound growth rate. Where Venango screwed up was in paying the insurance premium and not the mortgage payment in October 1988 following NICTD's unilateral abrogation of the subsidy contract. What they should have done was paid the bank, cancelled the insurance and slowed the trains down to 10 MPH! CSS’s history might have been a lot different.
But then, Venango would not have had the opportunity to collect millions from NIPSCO for breach of contract.