Members [of the Railway Society, Natal Branch] can hardly fail to be aware that the Umgeni Steam Railway (USR) restoration team has been busy for many a long day with a circa-1928 kitchen car, no. 269. One of the USR senior members has been heard to refer to it despondently as “the gift that keeps on giving” as every problem solved seems only to generate another problem. However, work continues and has turned up a story this ex-Johannesburger finds fascinating and worth re-telling.
One discovers in Les Pivnic’s (1985) esteemed book on railway dining cars, that the batch of kitchen cars to which no. 269 belongs, was designed by a team including one “Chef Zimmerli” – a name of considerable renown among lovers of good food of a certain age, living in Johannesburg some time ago.
Type A22 dining car (normally found with AA23 kitchen cars) in Matjiesfontein museum. (Hugh Glen)
Jules Zimmerli was born on 1 September 1896 and appears in the S.A.R. Magazine for the first time as the Chef running the dining car that was a highly esteemed part of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley (London) in 1924–25. He was promoted to Inspector of Chefs in the SAR Catering Department in 1926. At this point we are told that he had been in Railway service...
