British Railways was created in 1948 when the Great Western, the London, Midland & Scottish, the London & North Eastern and the Southern were taken into public ownership. It inherited all their locomotives, passenger and goods rolling stock. Whilst much has been published on BR locomotives and passenger stock, accurate and detailed coverage of the large inventory of vehicles used to convey the huge volumes of goods traffic carried by the railways at that time, is less readily available. This new series, of which this will be the penultimate volume, sets out to provide that information. This book deals mostly with two types of vehicles inherited by BR, the relatively small number of Ballast Plough Brake Vans and a huge fleet of hopper wagons of all types and capacities. Included in this category are hoppers of both wooden and steel construction which were used for a range of traffic flows including coke, coal and loco coal, iron ore and ballast. These vehicles included both those which had been part of the inventories of the companies nationalised in 1948 and those that came from private businesses. This volume, as with the others in the series is illustrated throughout with around 200 black and white photographs. The series is essential reading for those interested in this aspect of British railway history and an invaluable reference source for those engaged in modelling the post 1940s era.