The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-11-15
Notes on the Dinir g Car. From Kate Fields Washington.

A modern dining car of the most approved pattern costs $15,OOO to build. Next come the kitchen utensils, the ta-
 ble furniture, the silverware and linen averaging about 5000 worth to car. Each car must have a steward who
 usually gets $100 a month, and head cook who values himself at $75 month. There must also be one or two assistant cooks and three or four walters. Three hundred dollars a month is the very smallest outlay for wages, while the cost of raw food material, breakage of dishes and the board of employees is about sS,000 per month additional. An average five days run costs very nearly $500 for food and service, so that it would take forty persons at every meal on the run to pay the daily expenses, without allowing anything for interest on the investment or for wear and tear on the furnishings.
 The kitchen or a dining car contains every convenience except room. There is a range capable of doing all the boil ing, broiling baking and stewing of hun dreds of, people. yet occupying com paratively no space at all. There is q board for the carver, a bin and table for the baker and a sink for the dish washer, with shelves and cupboards i'm numerable for dishes and imperishable supplies-all in an area of five by twelve feet, at most. Every inch of space is carefully utilized. Under the 5car is the cellar or refrigerator, where ice, beef, mutton, poultry, milk, butter and other perishable supplies are kept.
 The steward, who is in charge of all this, must be good guesser. To be sure, the dining car is run on the prin- cipal that no money will be made any way; that one road must run it be- cause competing read does; that the traveller must, therefore, have the best in the market for fair price, and that it is better to threw away unused and spoiled material at the end of the trip than to run out of some necessary on the way; yet I imagine that the stew-- ard who has the lowest average of wasted food stands highest in his em- ployer's regard.
 The first thing he has to do is to make out the bills of fare for the trip. These must be approved by the head of the comnissary department. The chef buys the necessary supplies, but the steward has to turn in an inventory of them at the starting point, and also 8 statement of what has been used en route and what is left at the end of the run. There is no estimating the exact number of meals that will need tobe served during the run, ,Jparticular- ly if it be a short one. Suppose 1t is to be made from Washington to New York. Individual methods of economy are very different. While some prefer to pay the extra $1.25 for the extra comfort of seat in a parlor car, there are oth- CTS who think the common coach good enough and prefer to spend their dollar in the dining car. Again, there are some who frequent both parlor and diner, and others who care for neither. For 2 longer journey, every berth in the sleeper may be occupied, and yet the dining car may be practically ten- antless, or the sleeper may be nearly empty and the diner full of people from the day coach, or 1t may be crowded with the occupants of both. As the steward goes through the train on a tour of inspection or in giving his first call for a meal he must note from the number of lunch boxes and guess from the faces and dress of the passengers how many or1ers he will have. But even his best judgment may be far out of the way. for the lunch box may be for next dAys light repast. or some of the best-dressed passengers may not have decided p1aether to patronize the dining csf q not <