In 1903, the Cambrian Railways purchased 50 15ton coal wagons from Messrs. Pickering. As a step forward, this was nothing short of amazing, as 2 plank wagons rated at 8tons were being bought at the same time! It has not been possible yet to establish the reasons for these very large wagons, but they were impressive, at 18feet long and 8 feet wide, dwarfing other rolling stock. They must have been very useful, as the Cambrian built 20 wagons in Oswestry works the following year, identical apart from the addition of solebar mounted door bangers.

In service, they were used for coal movements, some being temporarily allocated to the shipment of loco coal, identified by the provision of a board, lettered accordingly nailed to the top left hand plank. Its removal can be often ascertained by the patch of darker grey left afterwards, contrasting with the more faded colours of the rest of the wagon.

The wagons were officially described as painted grey, with black ironwork, and this is clearly shown in the builders photograph, but in service the ironwork was not different in colour to the wood, and it is believed that the bodies were all over grey with black ironwork beneath the solebar. Lettering was the standard Cambrian large lettering, however, the works photograph shows the letters extending over 3 planks, but this is not thought to be how they ran in service.

All 70 passed to the Great Western, where, with their large load carrying capacity, they were found invaluable for the carriage of loco coal again, and they all would have received the GW all over grey before withdrawal from the mid 1930s.