Description
Kitchen cars had no passenger facilities other than a corridor, hence they were marshalled with open dining stock. With the capacity to serve up to eighty meals at a sitting both a restaurant open first and a restaurant open second could be used. All were built by Charles Roberts and originally allocated to the LMR. D701 and 80040 of D702 had B2 bogies when new; the rest of D702 had B5 bogies (Commonwealth bogies are shown in the blue/grey photos).
The D701 cars had anthracite stoves but the impracticality of this system, not to mention the antipathy of staff, meant they had a short life. The propane fuelled D702 cars lasted much longer.
D701 80020 and 80021 were rebuilt in 1968 to Booth Car 1106 and Bar Car 1883 respectively. Both lasted until 1980 and have been preserved.
