By Paul Appleton
WORK is progressing well on the overhaul of GWR Kitchen Car No. 9615, according to Neil Taylor, head of locomotives and rolling stock engineering at the Severn Valley Railway.
This long-term project has around a further two years to go before the vehicle can enter traffic, but as Neil said: “We have completed one side of the primary structure – the pictures show the contrast between the two sides – and although the subframe was pretty good, the rest of the structure was mostly rotted away, or had been so modified that it had lost much of its integrity anyway.”
The vehicle is one of the last bow-ended Kitchen First Diners built at Swindon by the GWR in 1932, as part of Lot 1469 to diagram H39. While in service it was regularly paired with Third Class Restaurant carriage No. 9627, which is also preserved at the SVR.
No. 9615 survived in BR departmental use after being withdrawn in 1963, having been replaced by new BR Mk1 vehicles. It reached SVR metals in early 1973 from Cardiff Canton and following initial restoration was used on trains in the 1970s, including use in the SVR’s GWR main line set.
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