LNER 7960 Kitchen Composite
LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway Kitchen CompositeCarriage having more than one class of seating, ie First and Third or latterly First and Standard. (RC) 7960 was built at Doncaster[1] in 1936. It was originally equipped with an anthracite-electric kitchen to serve meals into separate First and Third class saloons seating 12 and 18 respectively.
7960 was renumbered as 9162 in 1946. It remained in use in the former GNSGreat North of Scotland Railway area of the LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway until the 1960s. Its regular diagram was Aberdeen to Inverness, northbound serving breakfast, dinner on return. Following withdrawal it was converted to a Mess Coach for Scottish Region track workers, as departmental number DE 321021. The third class saloon was most altered to three sleeping compartments with a side corridor, and the former first class to a messroom complete with coal burning stove. Surprisingly the kitchen remained largely untouched although at some stage in its life the anthracite-electric cooker had been replaced with gas.
7960 arrived painted black and in run down condition on the SVRSevern Valley Railway, from Perth in late 1980, having been purchased privately by Mr John Giles. The ownership later passed to Mr Phil James who spent the next 20 years painstakingly restoring it to original condition. Sadly he died before he was able to complete the lengthy restoration, and in January 2011 7960 was generously gifted by his widow to the SVRSevern Valley Railway Rolling Stock Trust (now The SVR Charitable Trust. Final completion of the kitchen and pantry took place in 2015, and 7960 entered service in May 2015.
Sources
- ↑ (Or built at York, see sources below)
Railway Heritage Register Carriage Survey (states built at York)
LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway SVRSevern Valley Railway Coach Fund (states built at Doncaster)
SVRSevern Valley Railway Stock Book Ninth Edition (states built at Doncaster)
Links
7960 on vintagecarriagestrust.org
7960 on lnersvrcoachfund.org.uk
7960 on svrtrust.org.uk
