British Railways inherited a huge number of small, wooden-bodied coal wagons; the replacement of these was an early priority. Standard designs evolved from a wartime Ministry of Supply pattern, which was developed from pre-war designs built in small numbers. About sixty thousand of these wagons were built between the early 1940s and 1959, mostly by contractors.
This vehicle was built as an unfitted 16 ton mineral wagon, subsequently rebuilt by BR at Horwich with vacuum brakes and the body reversed so the tipping door was at the opposite end to its original location.
